


Reset

by whimsicalwombat



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M rated for a smidge of canon typical violence/injuries/angst/etc, Navabi family dramas, Who even knows? - Freeform, amnesia trope, and because I'm me there will also likely be fluff, at some point, hidden jewellery boxes, if my bad angsty influence has any say in the matter someone might get kidnapped in a later chapter, it's highly likely, it's just a question of when, mysterious files, rating may yet change, season 5 canon divergence, which hopefully will not end up too trope-y
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-03-28 15:24:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 65,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13906872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicalwombat/pseuds/whimsicalwombat
Summary: When Aram is struck down on his bicycle on his way to work, he wakes up in hospital with no memory of the last few years. The last thing he remembers is the aftermath of Anslo Garrick's intrusion into the Post Office, meaning that he remembers Liz, Reddington, and the original taskforce, but Samar is suddenly a stranger.Between frustration, guilt, and general mood swings, Aram has to get to know the love of his life all over again and figure out what to do with the mysterious case file he doesn't remember, while Samar has to figure out what to tell him of the last few years... And what to hold back.





	1. Memories Rediscovered

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so timeline wise, I'm going with the idea that the events of 5x08 took place in November 2017, so when Liz woke up from her coma ten months later, it would have been September 2018. Factor in a few months of rehab, and the weather conditions shown in the mid-season return, I tend to think of 5B starting set in early 2019, if that makes sense. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Aram's memory is set back to somewhere around the mid-season return of Season 1 -ie, January 2014.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Saturday, January 12, 2019. 
> 
> Enjoy! :)

**_SATURDAY..._ **

Aram's eyes snapped open. The bright lights suddenly glaring into his eyes, and the mixed sounds of beeping machines, crying families, urgently yelling staff, and wheeled beds rolling past with a whoosh, was all too painfully familiar.  

He could barely remember how he got there.

If anything, Aram could barely remember _why_ he was there.  

In quick, film cut-like flashes, he remembered the car that came dangerously close as he pedalled his bicycle to work early that morning, and he remembered swerving out of its way, but after that everything went blank. All Aram knew now was that everything hurt. His head was pounding and most of his body ached, especially all down his right hand side. Aram tried to shift into a more comfortable position in the hospital bed, but all of a sudden his shoulder and chest seared with pain. His eyes darted down, spotting the cast and sling around his right arm, and the strapping around his shoulder; he must have crashed into something... Not that he could remember _what,_ exactly.  

'Aram,' a soft, but unfamiliar voice jolted his attention to everything and everyone surrounding his emergency room bed. Liz was there, and so were Ressler and Cooper, all bearing looks of anxious concern. Amongst them were a nurse that Aram assumed was there tending to him, pair of Metro PD officers that he figured were there to take his statement, and then there was the unfamiliar woman who had spoken. She was tall –Aram noticed that immediately- and she was beautiful, with long, dark curls that tumbled around her shoulders and framed her warm, brown eyes. Somehow, the concern seemed to be etched even more anxiously on her face than that of anyone else in the room. Her eyes were puffy, and the tips of her fingers clutched his own, but Aram couldn't for the life of him figure out who she was. He didn't recognise her, and she wore no distinct uniform that could help him draw any logical conclusion.

'What happened?' He croaked, to the whole group in general. Opening his mouth to let the words out only made him even more aware that his throat felt dry and scratchy. He stared around at them all, still feeling in a daze.  
'A car nearly hit you,' the unfamiliar woman spoke again, 'you tried to avoid it, but you crashed into a truck parked on your other side and fell off your bike. You don't remember?'  
'I remember the car,' Aram muttered back. He let out a soft groan as the nurse tried to gently move his plastered arm back to where it was supposed to sit. 'But the rest...' Aram trailed off, staring around the room again as it registered exactly in his mind who was there and who wasn't. 'Where's Meera?' He asked suddenly; 'is she ok?'

The unfamiliar woman and his co-workers all exchanged looks of alarm, and a pang of dread instantly settled in Aram's stomach. Their most recent cases haunted him, as it did the rest of them; after the unexpected intrusion of Anslo Garrick into the Post Office, they had clung together so much more in the aftermath.

That was why Aram wasn't surprised to see them nearly all standing there, but why he was surprised to see just one of them absent.  

'Aram,' Liz gently spoke up this time, shooting a cautious look in the direction of the unfamiliar woman, 'what year is it?' Aram paused, blinking in confusion; _why would they ask him such a thing?  
_ '2014,' he said, before cracking a half-hearted grin; 'January, right? Or is the reason my head hurts so much because I've been out for weeks and we've already slipped into February?'

Nobody else in the room laughed at his desperate attempt to wipe those disconcerting looks from their faces. If anything, the concern on their faces only seemed to intensify, and the unfamiliar woman turned her head away for a moment in the attempt to stop him from spotting the way her gut plummeting in dismay played out easily across her face. Aram continued to stare, the grin vanishing in an instant and being replaced just as quickly with his own anxious expression at their uncomfortable silence.

'Well, January's right,' Ressler awkwardly chimed in, and Aram's focus shifted back to him, suddenly noticing a confusing lack of the leg injury he had suffered during Garrick's intrusion; 'but it's 2019 now.' Aram's eyes went wide; he didn't know how to respond to that. He felt those fingers around his own tighten slightly, drawing his attention back to the unfamiliar woman.  
'Do you know who I am?' She asked. Her voice was soft as she seemingly tried to keep it steady, but Aram didn't miss the way it wavered, nor the way the last word cracked before she went quiet again. His brow furrowed in confusion and he shook his head wordlessly.

As far as he could remember, he had never seen that woman before in his life.  

Part of him wished he had, if he was being honest with himself. She was unmistakably gorgeous, and held herself with both grace and elegance, strength and confidence all at once. Somehow, she seemed familiar, but Aram couldn't place a finger on why.

He stared around at them all again, focusing on each of them one at a time to take it all in. Ressler's missing leg injury wasn't the only thing that was different. Cooper looked greyer –even if only by the tiniest of fractions- and the stressed creases from their caseload seemed to have gained a slightly greater prominence across his forehead now. Liz's hair was different too, from what Aram remembered; it was a little shorter, with the layers now cut differently, and there were dark, tired rings that sat heavy under her eyes.  

Aram squeezed his eyes tightly shut, trying to remember how that could possibly have happened, but nothing came to mind.

Had five years _really_ passed between the last case he could remember, and that flash of a car careening into him?  

/*/*/*/*

It was dark outside when that strange woman –or _Samar,_ Aram had remind himself her name was- led him quietly home.

 _Their_ home, she said.  

The summary of the last five years that everyone had tried to give him at the hospital before he left was overwhelming. He had no memory of the woman, and yet she was taking him home. They had been together for nearly two years by now, since sometime in the middle of 2017, and they had been living together for roughly one –since sometime early on in Liz's ten month coma after the shock of what happened to her had drawn the rest of them even closer together all over again.  

Frankly, Aram wasn't sure which part of that statement shocked him more, but at least he now understood why that spark he remembered seeing in Liz's eyes seemed to have drained a little. She had more than enough of her own problems to deal with now.  

Between the overload of information they had told him, and the overload that was still missing, Aram didn't know what to say. He spent the drive home sitting quietly, with that awkward silence lurking over both his and Samar's heads. Where was he supposed to start? What year, case, or moment needed to be filled in first? What on earth had their taskforce been doing in the last five years that seemed to have left everyone looking so exhausted?

And honestly, Aram was still waiting for the answer to where Meera was, though by now he was pretty sure he was supposed to be assuming the worst.  

It was all a bit much.  

'Welcome home.' Samar tried to offer him a small smile as she opened the door to the apartment he didn't recognise, but she faltered as he didn't respond. Aram stepped inside, looking around curiously. There were things he recognised; from an old throw blanket on the couch that he'd had for years, to various pop culture merchandise scattered around, dotted between books on the shelf, and to items of furniture of his that he guessed they had pooled among moving in together, such as the desk in the corner of the living room and the old computer sitting on top that he tweaked as a hobby –but that had notably gained many an improvement in the five years missing from his memory. Then there were all the things he didn't recognise; all of Samar’s furniture and her belongings, he guessed, and photos of the two of them smiling happily together that were scattered from the mantle, to the shelf amongst his trinkets, and even on the fridge.

Samar watched him stare, her heart plummeting again at the blank look of non-recognition on his face. At the hospital before taking him home, the doctors had been unable to say when or even _if_ Aram would ever remember the last five years. It could be tomorrow, they said, or it could be months, years, or even never. The memories would come back if and when they were ready, probably trickling in at different times, with some gaps likely never to be filled. In the meantime, Aram was still Aram, minus the memories but with the same personality that she knew and loved still there... Though as he adjusted to the life he didn't remember, that sweet and gentle personality would naturally be interspersed with mood swings and frustrated outbursts. Samar wasn't sure where to start either; what were the most important things out of five full years to tell him first? Not to mention, did she tell him everything, or just give him the highlight reel? It seemed wrong to leave things out but at the same time, Samar wondered if it would be worth sparing him from the details of some of the more traumatic cases over the last few years that she only _wished_ she could forget. She also wished she could forget all the less pleasant memories, the fights they'd had in those up and down few months before they had finally come together at last.  

But then the question was; just how much omission of truth constituted a lie?

Samar had to ponder that, all the while trying to keep as much to Aram's old routine as possible. It was supposed to help him remember, but the reality was that Samar wasn't sure how much of his routine he _could_ keep now. His shattered arm, and fractured ribs and collarbone all down his right side from where he had crashed, meant that he couldn't return to work for at least six weeks –probably more once the Bureau put him through a post-trauma psych evaluation as well. Even if he only worked a desk job rather than running out into the field, Aram needed both sides functioning to be able to type properly and more importantly, operate all their field communications fast enough for safety and effectiveness. And so he had to stay at the home he didn't remember, and heal while Samar helped him with the basic routines of home he was bound to struggle with as well; everything from dressing himself, to spreading butter on toast with his singular and non-dominant hand.  

'Are you hungry?' She asked, prompting Aram from his daze as he turned to glance back at her; 'I can make you something.'    
'I'm just tired,' he murmured back, shaking his head, 'but thanks.' A lopsided, awkward attempt at an appreciative smile broke across his face.    
'It's late,' Samar observed, 'maybe we should both get some rest.' She paused, letting that sink in until Aram gave a slow nod of agreement. 'We can try to fill in some more of those gaps in the morning, if you want,' she added, softer this time. Aram gave another slow nod, his mind clearly wandering elsewhere.    
'Where's the bedroom?' He asked quietly, rather than respond to the rest. Samar gestured back towards the hallway, quickly and silently leading the way. Aram trailed along behind her, not making another sound as she showed him around the room and pointed out which drawer his pajamas were in, which toothbrush in the holder belonged to him, and everything else he needed to know.

It wasn't until she reached the point of which side of the bed that they each slept on, that Aram's attention zeroed in on what Samar was saying rather than simply following along with the motions, and he glanced back at her in surprise.

He had barely even noticed until then that in those couple of minutes spent talking, she had also changed into her own pajama shorts and even more alarmingly –one of his old shirts.  

'What?' She asked, eyes widening in concern. Aram shuffled awkwardly on his feet.    
'You, uh,' he began, 'remember the part where I don't remember any of the last five years, right?' Samar certainly seemed nice enough, but as far as Aram was concerned, she _was_ still a stranger, and while Aram could accept that he needed to get used to the life he had no memory of, there came a point where he had to draw a line. The fact that she was so at ease walking around in one of his shirts set off enough of a nagging feeling in his gut already, let alone her potentially climbing into bed with him.

Samar furrowed her brow for a second, before realising what he meant.  

'...And nobody wants to share a bed with a stranger,' she finished the train of thought for him, 'right.' Against her better judgement, Samar couldn't help but let out a sigh. She might have been a stranger to him, but he was far from a stranger to her and she was used to their routines. It was difficult to give him the wide berth that a stranger would, when she was so used to being comfortable in their combined space.  

Not to mention, being essentially kicked out of her own bed in her own room by the man she knew as her, for lack of a better word, _boyfriend,_ stung even more so than she expected.  

'I can take the couch-' Aram quickly spoke up again, but Samar shook her head.  
'-No, you'll make your injuries worse,' she reluctantly pointed out, 'I'll go.' Samar reached for the pillow on her side of the bed, tucking it under her arm and gathering a few more of her things into a pile at the end of the bed, before wordlessly reaching out again to help him out of his clothes and into his pajama bottoms. Aram struggled to fight off the awkward feeling; in part, he felt guilty about relegating her to the couch when she had done nothing but try to be helpful but at the same time, he desperately wanted the stranger out of his personal space. He was sure that he could manage to undress and dress himself with the one arm, but let her help him anyway –anything, really, if it helped her feel better and prompted her to leave the room faster- though he couldn't help but wince when she reached his trousers.  

And then, the next thing Aram knew, Samar was bundling that pile of things back under her arm, and slipping silently out the door, leaving him in that strange room, in that strange apartment... Alone.  

/*/*/*/*

Samar barely slept. At most, she managed forty minutes or so at a time before waking up again repeatedly. The fold out couch was comfortable enough, but there were too many questions swirling around and around in the back of her mind; wondering what to tell Aram, how to tell him, when his memories would come back, or if they would ever come back at all. The awkward and miserable silence bothered her, making it all worse.  

She stared up at the ceiling through the darkness, letting out a sigh. Getting back to sleep was impossible, no matter how tired she was. She pushed back the blanket in frustration, sitting up and then standing again, before half-heartedly wandering a lap around the room. She paused at the counter island separating living room from kitchen, glancing at the plastic bag still sitting on top. It was the bag that had come home with Aram from the hospital, containing all the belongings he had come in with as well as the remains of the clothes they had taken off him when trying to assess his injuries. Samar turned the bag over in her hands once, twice, three times before tearing it open –probably with even more frustrated zeal than necessary. The contents needed to be sorted through, and well... If she couldn't sleep, now was as good a time as any.

Clothes went in a pile to be washed, the leftovers of a packed lunch came out of his torn backpack and landed in the trash can, and everything vaguely tech went in a pile all of its own for safety.  

Samar's mind still wandered, only half concentrating on the task at hand... Until her fingers brushed against something unexpected in the bottom of the backpack. Something small, just big enough to wrap her hand all the way around it, soft and hard all at once. Samar squeezed her eyes shut before pulling her hand quickly from the bag; it wasn't hard to guess, even just by touch. She turned her hand over, uncurling her finger to reveal what she wasn't sure she wanted to already know; a small, dark blue, velvet lined box.

The kind that came from jewellery stores.  

Samar stared at it a little longer, contemplating whether or not to open it up, but it was the curiosity that ultimately won out. She cautiously lifted the lid, peering inside.

Even in the dimly lit kitchen at two in the morning, the sparkle of the stones against the limited light from the microwave clock was unmistakable.  

It was a ring, simple but elegant with two smaller, light green stones either side of the larger, central stone that was neither so big that it seemed flashy, nor so small that it would cause societal stereotypes to question Aram's love for her. It was even better than just right; with those stones set in a gently swirling band, it was stunning.  

Samar's heart felt like it was plummeting into her stomach for the umpteenth time in under twenty four hours as she stared at it. Barely days earlier, Aram had been talking about taking her to dinner and spoiling her for reasons he wouldn't explain. There had been a wide grin of excited delight on his face as he had made plans and booked the restaurant that he could only describe as a 'surprise'. In the chaos of Aram's accident, Samar had forgotten all about it, but now she knew _exactly_ what it was... And now Aram didn't. Samar closed the lid, running the back of her thumb wistfully across that soft, velvet top.  

She couldn't tell him that she found it, not now. Not only would he not remember, but it would only add to his stress of feeling pressured and trapped with a stranger, and it would only throw back in his face all the memories he had lost, yet again. Samar curled her fingers back around the box, clutching it close while gazing around the living room in contemplation; she had to hide it, and somewhere that Aram would find it easily when he remembered and thought to look for it again, but not before. It took a moment, but then Samar found it; the never used drawers under the coffee table, that Aram liked to joke about. Anything too close to his desk, and Aram would find it accidentally well before he was ready, but the drawers he barely remembered the existence of? It was the place he had once claimed was perfect for hiding treasures, but that he had no reason to look in otherwise. Samar crossed the room again, slipping that tiny box into the empty drawer just as she tried to force the memory of it into a box of its own in her brain.  

She wandered another lap around the apartment in the attempt to settle the thoughts that seemed to spiral at ever increasing speed, pausing only to glance through the half-ajar bedroom door at Aram, sleeping soundly as if nothing had changed at all.  

But that tiny box she wasn't supposed to know about, sitting tucked away in a drawer barely feet from her fold out couch, refused to leave her mind as she pulled the blankets back up to her chin once more.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, Aram finds a mysterious case file. What might it be?


	2. Forgotten Mysteries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Thursday, January 17, 2019.

**_THURSDAY..._ **

It took a few days of Aram swinging back and forth between good moods and bad moods, for Samar to figure out exactly what kept him happy and what set him off, and in turn fall into a routine. Any mention of the five years lost, phrased in such a way that Aram felt either pressured to remember or that it was being thrown back in his face, resulted in an outburst. Other mentions, if gentle or amusing, such as the revelation of just how many seasons of Doctor Who he could watch for the first time all over again, set him back at ease.  

Going overboard in helping him manage his injuries, or not helping him at all and instead leaving him to struggle in embarrassment set him off too, but when Samar could somehow miraculously find a balance somewhere in the middle, Aram was happy.  

It wasn't easy. Both were torn between knowing and understanding the difficult situation the other was in, and being all too frustrated at their own to be reasonable.  

The fact that Samar still had to go to the Post Office every morning while Aram had to stay home, at least gave them a little space; space for Aram from the stranger in his personal space, and space for Samar from the heartbreaking reality of having to be that very stranger. She helped him get dressed and she made sure that there were single serves of leftovers in the fridge that he only needed one arm to reheat in the microwave for lunch, and then after that Samar left him to it for the day.  

And at least, with five years of favourite television shows to catch up with, Aram had no lack of things to do despite the injuries down his upper right side that made most other tasks difficult.  

It was after the first few episodes of the day that Aram moved onto the next part of his new routine; stretching his legs before the next episode by walking downstairs and back again, just to check the mail. For the most part, there was nothing overly interesting when it came to the contents of the mailbox but for once, one envelope caught Aram's eye. It was larger than the others, at full page size rather than the usual envelope size that bills or letters arrived in, it was thick and heavy with what felt like numerous pages inside, and most interestingly... It was addressed to him in hurriedly scrawled handwriting. 

Aram paused as he turned the envelope over in his hand, eyeing it curiously. He certainly didn't remember arranging for anything of the sort to be sent to him, but then again... He didn't remember  _ any _ recent events before waking up in the hospital barely a week earlier. He shuffled upstairs once more, still holding the envelope in one hand and then awkwardly tearing it open with his teeth, before dropping it on the counter, slipping his good hand inside and clumsily pulling out the contents.  

It was a case file, not marked with the insignia of any agency in particular, but the manila folder wrapped reports were unmistakable.  

Aram flicked curiously through the pages. The hand scrawled message on a Post-It note just inside the cover that read  _ 'this is all I could find. I hope it helps. -Greg' _   was instantly cast aside; the mysterious Greg was yet another person Aram figured he must have met in the missing five years and now couldn't remember. Instead, it was the remaining contents of the file that proved more interesting; from what Aram could tell, it was an unredacted, classified murder case from the early nineties in Iran; a married couple killed and left bloodied on their living room floor for their two children to find. It seemed simple enough but as Aram flicked through those pages –both scans of the originals and their translations into English- a puzzle began to emerge. For one, the original murder case was sloppy and written off as a cold case far earlier than Aram would have liked and secondly, the manila folder contained so much than the original murder case file. Behind that were piles of government reports, each more intriguing than the last, documenting the lives of the two victims, their crusade against the regime, and most curiously... Their sentencing to execution for their crimes, and records of numerous such executions conducted covertly through sanctioned hits.  

And on the very last page in the folder, in the form of a slim profile that appeared to have been taken from a CIA report, was the identity of the killer hired to do just that.  

Aram couldn't figure out for the life of him why he would be sent such a complex puzzle, nor why he would have even been looking into it in the first place.  

Nothing in it seemed familiar. It didn't seem the sort of case that he remembered Reddington bringing to the taskforce, unless those cases had changed dramatically in the lost five years. The names of the victims didn't ring any bells in his mind either. 

Though on that note, it occurred to Aram that in the chaos of everyone trying to bring him up to speed of what had happened in the last years, Samar hadn't even thought to tell him some of the more minor and seemingly obvious details such as her own last name or birthday.  

Aram shook the thought from his mind. Whoever those victims were, and whatever the case was that he had apparently been investigating, he felt genuinely sympathetic... But at the same time, with five years' worth of lost memories, Aram had no idea what to do with the mysterious case file now either. 

Well. He _ did _ have the option of asking Samar what it was, but for some reason the very idea of that didn't sit well with him.  

Not sure what else to do, Aram slipped the folder in his desk drawer, and half-heartedly returned to the couch. Hopefully, as he caught up on everything that had happened in the last few years, he would figure out what that file meant on his own.  

/*/*/*/* 

Samar, meanwhile, had a case of her own; not the latest case brought to the taskforce by Reddington but rather, the case of unravelling Aram's plans for the ring she had found. Perhaps it was the need, after a tough week with Aram's frustration at his memory loss, to find some joy in his planned surprise, or perhaps it was sheer curiosity, Samar wasn't entirely sure... But no matter the fact that Aram's plan would now never eventuate, Samar wanted to know what it  _ would _ have been.  

In some twisted way, it gave her hope.  

From her desk, during a lull in the case, she made round after round of phone calls, from all of their favourite haunts and the places she could recall Aram talking about lately, to his parents for any snippets of information that he might have let slip to them, slowly piecing together what exactly he had planned.  

There was the dinner at their favourite, low-key restaurant with late opening hours that had become their treasured sanctuary for fulfilling, home-cooked meals on the way home from long nights at the Post Office. Aram had planned all kinds of surprises with the restaurant owner who knew them well as regulars by now; a three course meal of their favourite dishes, sitting at their favourite booth with the window views and corner privacy, which was to be decked out with candles, a reserved sign, and a bottle of her favourite champagne. From there, they were supposed to go for a stroll through the park at the end of the street, that was temporarily hosting a garden display full of twinkling lights... And there, according to Aram's parents, was where he was planning to propose.  

No ridiculously over-grand gestures, but a simple, romantic and sentimental night out that was perfectly them.  

Samar let out a wistful sigh at the very idea of it, her musings only jolted as the shrill sound of her phone ringing suddenly broke the silence.  

A second sigh in less than as many minutes couldn't help but escape her as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and noted Aram's name flashing on the screen.  

'Aram?' Samar answered the phone, brow furrowed in mixture of confusion and concern.    
'I don't know how to get home,' Aram immediately burst out. There was no greeting, no pleasantries; it was straight to the point and the tone was an anxious one, immediately setting off a pang of dread in Samar's stomach.    
'Aren't you  _ at _ home?' She asked.    
'No,' Aram yelped. 'I went for a walk. I can't move my arm but I can still move my  _ legs, _ and I needed to stretch them and get out of that damn apartment-' Samar winced as Aram's words became more and more frenzied in the combination of frustration, anxiety, and overwhelming embarrassment '-but I don't know what our address is and I wasn't paying attention to where I was going, so now I don't know how to get back and I've been walking in circles for over an hour.'   
'Ok,' Samar began. She kept her voice low and steady to try and calm him down; 'just breathe-'  
'-Samar, just tell me how to get back,' he cut her off. There was a hint of a growl Samar could hear in his voice through the phone, tinted with desperation.  

Samar steadied herself before rattling off their address, slowly repeating it a few more times until they were both sure that Aram had it memorised again.  

It was going to be a long evening.  

/*/*/*/* 

Needless to say Aram was still embarrassed by the time she got home, and his embarrassment only deteriorated into frustration after that. After the third time that he snapped at her while she tried to make dinner, Samar left. She set dinner on a plate and handed it to Aram where he sat in front of his latest Doctor Who episode, then turned, picked up her purse and keys, and slipped out.  

She needed a moment to clear her head rather than snapping back at him, and they both needed the space.  

...But within an hour of arriving at the bar a few blocks over from their apartment building, Samar was already regretting leaving at all. The beer cradled in her hand remained only half empty and to add insult to injury, there was a drunken businessman leering over her shoulder. He was harmless enough, completely non-aggressive and he had stopped trying to hit on her –well,  _ mostly- _ when she politely rebuffed him, and again each time he forgot and she'd had to remind him... But he still wanted to sit with her and chat about life, the universe and everything, completely oblivious to all the cues that she wanted to drink in peace and quiet,  _ alone.  _

'I thought you said your boyfriend forgot you,' the man tried to coax her, after yet another reminder that she  _ didn't _ want to meet his dog at the park the next day. His words slurred and ran into one another –the effect of a number of beers that Samar wasn't sure she wanted to count.    
'He didn't forget me,' she sharply replied. 'He doesn't  _ remember. _ There's a difference.'   
'Doesn't sound like it to me,' the man burbled back, drunken but cheerful grin plastered wide across his face. Samar, however, didn't meet his eye. She pushed back her stool, leaving her still half-full beer on the bar and rising to her feet again, ready to leave as she dismally replied;    
'Hopefully it'll never have to.' 

/*/*/*/*  

Only the kitchen light was still switched on when Samar returned home –the precious little necessary for her to be able to see rather than stumble over the furniture in otherwise pitch black darkness. Samar dropped her purse and keys back on the counter, then wandered curiously down the hall. Again, the apartment was filled by a silence only broken by the faint noises from outside. Samar poked her head gingerly around the bedroom door, in part bracing herself for the possibility of Aram still being awake and snapping at her again just for doing so... But no such response came. If he was awake, he said nothing, and he moved not a muscle. Samar crept a little further inside; she hadn't expected him to wait up for her to return home but somehow, as she leaned in just enough to see the outline of his figure in the darkness, and the slow rise and fall of his chest, she didn't expect to be taken aback by just how peaceful he suddenly seemed now that he was in the realm of unconsciousness.  

Samar leaned in a little further still, running soft fingertips through his hair and pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead.  

For all her frustration at him, she had still found herself defending him to the man at the bar. 

'I love you,' she whispered. Her eyes flickered closed as she lingered there for a moment longer; 'you don't remember it, and I'm sorry... But I love you.' Head bowed, Samar pulled back her hand and retreated quietly back out of the room once more.  

It was only just as she moved that Aram's eyes flickered open again, watching her shadowy outline slip back through the door with a contemplative expression all of his own. 


	3. Lessons Learned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Friday-Sunday, January 25-27, 2019

**_FRIDAY NIGHT..._ **

It was another of Aram's less than great days that the doctors had warned about. He had been in a foul mood in the morning when Samar had taken it upon herself to make him breakfast before leaving for work and apparently, he had stayed in that mood all day until she returned home again. 

Well, either that or his mood had soured again _ because _ she had returned home.  

No matter what Samar did, it seemed to get on Aram's nerves, which in turn was starting to get on her own. Regardless, Samar tried to stay calm and not hold it against him; she knew his body ached and his brain felt those bouts of infuriating fuzziness, and she knew how much  _ she _ hated it when she couldn't do anything for herself that she wanted to. Frankly, Samar didn't blame him for being in a bad mood... She just wished that he hadn't had to go through the pain that led to the bad mood in the first place. 

But that didn't mean it was easy.  

'Why stay with me then?' Aram burst out suddenly, in response to her letting out a frustrated sigh of her own. When she brought him a glass of water he felt insulted, but then when she didn't, Aram struggled with the faucet and his non-dominant hand –or trying to fill a glass under it one-handed without splashing water everywhere... And then he was annoyed all over again. It seemed that no matter what Samar did, and no matter how much she wanted Aram to feel better, she just couldn't win... And so the sigh had slipped out before Samar could even try to stop it. 'If I'm so difficult for you, why stay with me?' Aram complained again, 'why not leave and save your sanity?' 

Those words, though more grumbled than sharp and angry, still stung deeply, but Samar tried not let it show.  

'For one,' she began, her tone biting probably more than necessary, 'because I'm  _ not _ the sort of person who would walk out on you just because you're sick or injured-' she paused, holding Aram's gaze and gritting her teeth in the attempt to soften her tone '-and two, because I  _ love _ you, Aram. You might not remember it, but _ I _ do,' she added, notably softer this time, 'and when you _ do _ remember-'   
_ '-If-'  _ Aram tried to interject, but Samar kept going.   
_ '-When,' _  she corrected over him, 'I want to still be here for that Aram you don't remember.'  
'But I  _ don't-' _ Aram scowled, cutting himself off mid-sentence in sheer frustration as the shrill noise of Samar's phone ringing burst out from her pocket over his words '-oh just answer it,' he snapped. Samar opened her mouth to respond; she wanted to ignore the call and finish the conversation, but Aram turned and trudged away, slumping back onto the couch for the next episode of his five year catch up. 

Samar let out another sigh, reaching into her pocket and tugging out her phone instead.  

Aram raised an eyebrow, watching out of the corner of his eye as she seemed to glance at the screen and then duck quickly out of the room. Not once did he turn to look again, but he could hear the sound of unhappy conversation in hushed undertones, as someone appeared to be asking her to go somewhere and Samar tried to turn them down so that she could stay home with him instead. Aram rolled his eyes. He was tired of feeling like a child that needed to be babysat. 

'Just go,' he bitterly called out through the apartment to her, 'I'll be fine by myself.' There was a pause where Samar fell silent in the next room, before the hushed undertones finally –and reluctantly- agreed to whatever the caller was asking... And then the voices went silent again. A moment later, and Aram could hear her moving around; up and down the hallway, and then rustling in the bedroom. Aram furrowed his brow in confusion, wondering what on earth she could be doing.  

'Are you sure you're going to be alright while I'm gone?' Samar's voice floated into the room barely a second before she too, strode back in; 'I should be back some time on Sunday afternoon.'   
'Sunday?' Aram's head whipped around to stare back at her in surprise as he spoke. There was a half-open, half-packed duffle bag dragging along the ground behind her that made Aram furrow his brow even more so.    
'Mmhmm,' Samar absentmindedly hummed under her breath. 'Sometimes Mossad calls me in for short assignments away-' she reached for the pile of unfolded laundry on the armchair, tossing another couple of shirts into the bag '-I was going to stay home, but-'   
'-Uh...' Aram suddenly interjected. His eyes were wide as he watched her move around the room with her go bag, and he could feel his heart rate start to thump harder against his aching ribs. He had told her to go, but only because he didn't know who she was talking to and he had assumed it was just for a meeting that would have her back again in all of two or three hours. Thirty six, on the other hand –a full day and a half- was a completely different matter entirely, and the dread was quickly setting in. 'Why would Mossad be calling you?' Aram spoke again.    
'Because I work for them,' Samar replied, all too matter of factly for Aram's taste. 'I'm on loan from Mossad to the taskforce-' a lump rose in Aram's throat and he forced himself to swallow,  _ hard _ '-Reddington had it set up.'  

That, apparently, was another of those seemingly minor and obvious details that had been overlooked when filling him in on the last five years. Meanwhile, Aram had simply assumed she was a stock-standard FBI agent like the rest of them. He’d had no reason before now to assume anything else. 

'Oh, o-ok...' All semblance of anger and frustration that he had felt earlier, had now vanished into thin air, replaced only by an overwhelming wave of anxiety, and it shook his voice; 'I guess I'll be... Fine.' 

Samar hesitated at the sudden change in tone and she turned, holding his gaze for a moment. She didn't want to leave him there for that long. She knew he would struggle. It wouldn't kill him, but having to look after himself in that state for that long certainly wouldn't be an easy feat, and the uneasiness was clear across his face. 

But he wasn't about to admit he was wrong or ask her to stay. If he did, she would call Mossad back in a heartbeat –after all,  _ they _ already knew what was going on- but the tension and awkwardness between them was still so great that Aram wasn't about to ask... And he had  _ so _ vehemently told her to go.  

She had been trying so hard to be supportive, to help him and understand him, and all he had done was keep trying to push her further and further away. 

So now she was going to go.  

/*/*/*/* 

**_SUNDAY..._ **

Samar steadied herself as she pushed open the front door. She had texted Aram when she left the airport to tell him that she was on her way home, but there had been no response. She felt oddly unsettled, and apprehensive about what she might find inside when she returned home.  

She stepped cautiously into the front hallway, heading for the living room. She could hear the television on –the usual for Aram of late- but the volume seemed softer than expected.  

'Hey, I'm back,' Samar warily called out, but again there was no response. 'Aram?' She asked again, a little louder this time as she rounded the corner from the hallway into the living room. He was on the couch again, in little more than his boxers, and on the side table next to him sat a half-eaten sandwich on a plate, but it was squashed and torn as if it had fallen apart before it was even clumsily finished. With Aram's hair pointing out in all directions and one foot missing a sock, all in all he looked utterly miserable. Samar continued her way across the room towards him, only able to meet Aram's eye as his disheartened gaze flickered up for just a second. 'You ok?' She asked softly.    
'I couldn't get dressed properly by myself,' Aram murmured back, dejectedly eyeballing the floorboards for a moment longer before looking up again; 'and do you know how hard it is to butter a sandwich with only one hand?' He glanced up again and held Samar's gaze, expecting some kind of spiteful, unforgiving expression, but instead her eyes bore only a warm, reassuring sympathy.  

He had regretted telling her to leave from the moment she had said it would be longer than a couple of hours, and he had regretted it even more every hour since... But as fate would have it, Aram had only truly realised just how much he would struggle without her, after she had already gone. For all his complaints about not needing her help, he had barely been able to get dressed without her. Shimmying out of his clothes before bed on the day she left had been tricky but not impossible, but pulling clothes on again the next morning was a completely different matter. With one side of his upper body being of no practical use, he'd had to sit awkwardly on the side of the bed and lean sideways to try and pull his clean underwear up with just one hand –little bit by little bit, alternating from side to side and hoping neither side fell down again while he pulled the other until finally, he had wrestled them all the way up his legs.  

He had already known that he couldn't pull a clean shirt over his injured side without Samar's help because it meant twisting his other arm around and straining his already painful ribs, but Aram had hoped that he could at least manage to deal with pants.  

But then after his boxers, he had been exhausted. Trying to repeat the exercise with even heavier, longer pants again had just seemed daunting and pointless... And so Aram had given up on trying to dress himself any further.  

He had at least forced himself to  _ change  _ his boxers each day, but other than that he had stuck to miserably wandering around in them alone –or with a blanket draped lopsided around his aching shoulders if he got cold.  

And that was just the dilemma with clothes. Trying to make himself meals after the leftovers in the fridge had run out, hadn't been easy either. Even making a sandwich was messy, because he couldn't use a second hand to steady the bread so it didn't slide around or tear to shreds when he tried to spread anything on it.  

'I'm sorry,' Aram mumbled again. In an instant, Samar felt her heart plummeting into her stomach. She hadn't wanted to leave him there, but she had been so frustrated with him pushing her away.    
'What for?' She asked softly. Her feet came to a stop just behind the couch, and she rested a single, reassuring hand on his good shoulder, her thumb brushing softly back and forth along his skin.    
'I thought...' Aram began, bowing his head, 'when you were helping me, that I didn't need it but I was just letting you do it... But I did need it-' he shook his head in annoyance at himself, before looking up at her again '-I do need you.' Aram held her gaze, both of them looking as regretful and apologetic as each other.  'You were helping me even when I was snapping at you,' he murmured, 'I'm sorry for that.' His brow furrowed as Samar suddenly turned on the spot, leaving her bag behind but heading back towards the hallway all the same; 'wait, where are you going?' 

Aram scuttled quickly along after her, eyes widening for a moment as she strode into the bedroom and started rifling gently through his pile of laundry.  

'I know you don't remember much of me,' she said softly, pulling a shirt out of the pile and then turning back again to close that small gap between them; 'but I'm going to do this anyway.' A breath caught in Aram's throat as Samar reached out, running a gentle hand along one cheek. She rested it there and then leaned in, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek as well. 

All at once it felt odd and yet, Aram felt no need to push her away. If anything, his stomach flipped a somersault, and that strange sense of something being familiar but not being able to put his finger on exactly what, washed over him all over again. Whatever it was, it felt like a spark went off inside –just for a split second before vanishing again. Samar leaned back, holding up her choice of shirt from the laundry pile for him to see;  

'This shirt ok?' She asked. Aram nodded quickly and Samar reached out again, this time with the shirt and gesturing to it in the silent offer to help him put it on. This time Aram didn't hesitate, nor did he protest. He quite happily allowed her to pull it around him, at last offering her an appreciative smile instead of trying to make the process more difficult. With her help, it only took a few minutes for Aram to be completely dressed again. 

'Samar?' He spoke again, after a moment's pause. Her gaze flickered back to him, and Aram hesitated. He shuffled awkwardly back and forth on his feet, not really sure how to say what he wanted to say. To a certain extent, she was still a stranger to him, but she was a kind stranger.... A trustworthy stranger who only wanted to help him, and he needed her. It wasn't easy to let her in, but he needed to try.  

The last day and a half had been a struggle, but Aram was glad she had gone –if for no other reason than the fact that it had forced him to have that very realisation.  

'You shouldn't have to sleep on the couch anymore,' he said. All of a sudden there was a decisiveness in his voice, that took Samar by surprise. 'I might still have some bad days, but...' He trailed off, completely unable to finish the sentence. They both knew for a fact that he was still going to have bad days, but Aram knew he couldn't keep punishing Samar for that any more, nor could she go on sleeping on the couch every night. 

Samar simply broke into a soft smile.  

'What did you want in that sandwich?' She asked quietly.   
'Oh, you don't have to make me anoth-' Aram hurriedly replied, but Samar cut him off.  
'-I'm not making it  _ for _ you,' she scoffed, albeit only gently. 'I'm making it  _ with _ you. You can make your own sandwich. I'll just be your other hand to hold it steady.' She gave a quick wave of her hand, the silent gesture for him to follow her back towards the kitchen now that he was dressed again. 'Come on.'  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, we take a brief pause of fluff, in 'Steps Forward'.
> 
> Let me know if you're enjoying it so far, folks! :)


	4. Steps Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Saturday, February 2, 2019.

**_SATURDAY...._ **

The tiniest flakes of February snowfall tickled the skin of Aram's cheeks. He winced, stretching his good hand across his body to pull his slipping coat back over his right side, the fingertips poking out of his cast then clutching into the buttoned edge to shield them from the cold. Aram walked up and down the rows of headstones, paying no attention to the footprints he was leaving behind in that soft, fresh snow starting to blanket the ground. Samar was waiting back in the warmth of the car; not due to being selfish, but simply because Aram had wanted to do this himself. She had suggested that they go out and about for the day, to get to know each other again over a change of scenery and at last, Aram had agreed. Both were trying harder to be patient with each other of late, and it was working... But there was one stop on the way to the Smithsonian that Aram had asked her to make.  

And then he found it.  

The chilled breath caught in Aram's throat as he stared back at that headstone.

 _'In loving memory,'_ it read...

_'1975-2014'_

So it was true. He didn't remember it, and it didn't feel real... But it was.  

Without even realising it, the fingers of his good hand clutched even tighter around the small arrangement of lilies he was holding.  

'Hi,' Aram quietly began, 'Agent Malik... Meera, I mean.' He hesitated for a moment, his eyes staring in heartbroken disbelief at her name chiselled across the stone. Aram took a breath, steadying himself before carefully leaning over to set the lilies at the foot of the stone without straining his ribs. Those pale petals seemed to fade immediately into the thin layer of snow.  

'This whole talking to a headstone thing is kind of awkward,' Aram spoke again. He let out a nervous laugh for a second, before steeling himself again; 'but I thought I should come. I, uh, don't remember what happened to you. The others... Agents Keen and Ressler... They told me what happened. We all went to your funeral, but um, I don't remember that either.' Aram blinked hard, his words now slow and earnest. 'The last memory I have of you is wrapping up the Good Samaritan case, so I just thought... Maybe I should come and pay my respects again.' Silence fell between them for a moment, as Aram contemplated what he had been told of Meera's passing.  

'It's a weird feeling, losing five years of memory,' he murmured again, softer this time. Aram shook his head, wondering why on earth he was still talking to the block of stone at his feet. He had only worked with Meera for about a year before she died, and of that he could barely remember the first half. She was a colleague he had trusted, admired, and respected deeply, but though Meera always seemed nice enough, they had never been close socially –at least, not that he remembered, anyway.  

There had never been time for that.  

Yet somehow, as awkward as it was to talk to her headstone, it also felt comforting.  

'Everyone's been trying to tell me what I've forgotten and I've been writing it down to make sure I remember it,' Aram continued, 'but it's weird remembering things I lived, but only as stories instead of experiences. Sometimes I confuse them... I remember something, and then I realise I'm just remembering what they told me, instead of remembering actually being there.' He let out a shiver, the coat draped over one side of him instead of being properly closed causing the chilled wind to slip under the layers easier than it should have. His injured side began to ache again as his muscles tensed in the attempt to keep him warm. He shook his head again, letting out a weary sigh; 'it was like one night after a case, I went to sleep and then when I woke up again, it was in that hospital bed… And now my whole brain feels like a blur of everything that was supposed to happen in between.'  

Aram shuffled on his feet, his gaze panning around the cemetery until it settled on Samar's car in the distance, still parked just outside the entrance.  

A soft smile broke across his chill flushed cheeks as he watched her. She was barely visible at that distance, but Aram could _just_ see her outline through the car window, patiently waiting for him to return.  

'Samar's here too,' he added, breaking the silence again. His gaze flickered quickly back to the thick, almost square stone in front of him; 'I don't think you two met each other, but so far I think you'd get along. She reminds me of you, kind of. I'm still trying to get to know her all over again, but she seems...' Aram paused as he trailed off, furrowing his brow and wondering how on earth to describe her. From what he learned in the now three weeks since waking up in the Emergency Room, Samar was fierce. She was passionate, kind, and intelligent. She worked hard and she fought hard for those she cared for and the things she believed in. There was an air of strength, confidence, and grace about her that was almost mesmerising.

And it was clear that she wasn't someone you ever wanted to end up on the wrong side of, just as Meera had been.  

'Anyway, uh... I just wanted to say I'm sorry for what happened... And for not remembering it.' His good hand reached down, resting atop the stone for a moment. His thumb ran back and forth, tracing the curve of the top edge, deep in thought.  

And with one last shiver, he turned and slowly began his way back to the car.

/*/*/*/*

There was an instant relaxed air about Aram when they stepped out onto the National Mall, and straight away Samar was glad to have chosen the Smithsonian as their first outing together for Aram's recent memory. He loved that long stretch of lawn with its seemingly endless lines of museums up and down each side, surrounded by walkways and stunning gardens, and it was something he _had_ loved long enough that even despite five years missing from his memory, he remembered it.  

Really, the only thing he didn't remember about the Smithsonian was visiting it with Samar by his side.

There was a smile stretched wide across Aram's face as they strolled around the grounds and each of his favourite museum galleries in turn. For the most part, it all looked much the same as he remembered it, so there was no painful reminder of the five years lost, and for the icing on the cake; he didn't need two functioning arms to be able to walk around and enjoy all the displays. Wandering around those grounds was like a sanctuary; a day free from all the frustrations of his current limitations.  

Meanwhile Samar, who usually grew bored after a while when visiting the same displays again every few months as Aram suddenly felt overdue for another visit, could only smile this time around. It was a relief to see Aram so relaxed and happy again for the first time in weeks, and listen to him repeat the same fun facts he had always told her before.  

For both of them, it gave the illusion that those five years were never truly lost after all.  

'Did you know,' Aram began. His eyes crinkled in delight as they both stepped through the entrance to the Smithsonian Castle building, and passed the casket of its founder that sat just inside to the left; 'James Smithson never actually-'  
'-set foot in the United States, until his casket was shipped here over seventy years after his death, despite leaving his entire estate to the country with the sole purpose of setting up an educational hub?' Samar mused over him, repeating almost word for word the fact that Aram observed just about every time he stepped into the building. An amused smirk tugged at her lips, and Aram instantly faltered.  
'Well, originally his estate went to-' he tried to point out, a touch of earnestness suddenly creeping into his voice.  
'-his nephew.' Samar's smirk widened into a grin, and she couldn't help but let out a chuckle. Aram simply stared back at her in disbelief for a moment, before sheepishly bowing his head.  
'I've told you that one before, huh?' He asked.    
'Mmhmm,' Samar hummed back; 'just about every time I've been here with you.' They passed through the security checkpoint just beyond the entrance, rounding the corner and heading towards the Castle Café on their left.    
'Sorry,' Aram muttered quickly, though the sheepish look lasted barely a second longer. He studied the expression on Samar's face, relieved to see not a speck of annoyance there at the fact that he didn't recall telling her the same fact before. Instead, for some reason, she actually seemed pleased to hear it again.  

That playful, teasing grin of amusement on her face stirred up a warm feeling in his belly too, that Aram couldn't quite place. For one, it was fun and infectious, and Aram couldn't help but grin back... And secondly, the smile lit up her face until those warm, dark eyes of hers almost seemed to twinkle. From the second he had first seen her in the hospital, Aram had thought Samar was beautiful, but now when she smiled... It was another level entirely that he couldn't even begin to describe.  

He could certainly see what it was about her that he had probably been attracted to the first time around.  

'We should talk about things, right?' Samar's soft question jolted Aram from his internal musings, and his attention snapped quickly back to her. 'So you can get to know me again?'  
'Probably.' He nodded back. Aram looked around; he had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn't even noticed the fact that he had followed Samar straight into the café and towards a table by the window; 'but where do you even _start_ when you have five years' worth of history to explain?' Samar paused, furrowing her brow as she too, contemplated that for a moment.    
'How about you just ask questions,' she suggested, 'anything you suddenly think of that you want to know, just ask and I'll answer.'

Aram gave a slow nod, wondering what one, single question to pick first. He wondered whether to choose something significant or deeply personal, or perhaps something seemingly trivial. Anything he could ask would be a valid question in its own right. Aram's gaze wandered as he thought about it, from the choices on the café menu, to the array of colourful flowers outside the window. The corners of his lips quirked up in thought; he had his first question.  

'What's your favourite colour?' He asked.    
'Green,' Samar said simply. In an instant, the smirk was back on her face at the choice in question, and Aram nodded thoughtfully, apparently satisfied with her response.    
'Mine's purple.'  
'I know.'    
'Right, of course you do.' Aram sheepishly shook his head at that gently teasing grin etching its way across her face again; it still felt odd to him that though he remembered nothing of her and the last five years, Samar remembered _everything._ She knew every detail of his life inside and out –and in the case of his more recent history, naturally she knew his life even better than he did. Aram's gaze wandered about the room once more, searching for the next question and settling on the dessert menu.  

'Do you like ice cream?' Samar raised a single, wry eyebrow at the question.    
'What kind of monster doesn't like ice cream?' She quipped.    
'Are you always so, uh...' Aram hesitated, trying to find just the right word; 'sassy?'  
'Pretty much.' Her voice was droll, and there it was; that playful, teasing grin all over again for the third time in as many minutes, making Aram's stomach flip a somersault. 'And depending on the day, your favourite is either rum raisin or mint chocolate chip,' Samar continued, ticking them off one by one on her fingertips with a knowing, musing tone; 'or _occasionally_ cookie dough-' Aram nodded; each and every one of those was correct, not that it really surprised him at all '-my favourite is anything with chocolate.'  

Samar leaned back in her chair, warming her hands on the outside edge of her steaming fresh coffee mug. Aram couldn't help but watch and study her face. It was amazing how quickly the tension had dissipated from their apartment as soon as he had realised that she was only trying to help and she only wanted to make him feel better. They had been able to talk without arguing, contemplate the five years lost without feeling frustrated or pressured to remember them, and generally work together around the apartment as best they could, even if it was so simple as Samar holding a piece of bread steady so that he could spread something on to make a sandwich.  

He had been able to simply see her for who she was rather than some villain who was trying to make him feel worse.  

And now, having managed to escape the apartment for a change of scenery, it was amazing how relaxed he suddenly felt sitting across that table from her, laughing over trivial differences of opinion in ice cream flavours.

It wasn't as if they were battling or hiding feelings for one another, wary of starting a new relationship just in case the other didn't feel the same. Samar was already committed to the notion of their relationship whether Aram remembered it or not, and she was ready to act on it as soon as Aram was ready... It was simply a question of waiting for him to finally feel comfortable enough to let her.  

Letting a stranger in like that was a daunting concept.

But anything with chocolate seemed an answer he could trust... And more importantly, it was an answer he could work with.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, another memory returns in 'If Only'.
> 
> In the meantime, if you're reading and enjoying this so far, please leave a comment! I'm still toying with ideas as to where I want this one to go, so please let me know your thoughts! Feedback is my writer fuel :D


	5. If Only

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Thursday, February 14, 2019.

**_WEDNESDAY NIGHT..._ **

Samar awoke with a pillow-muffled groan. Bleary-eyed and still half asleep, she rolled over staring blankly across the bed through the pitch black darkness. It was Aram that had woken her again –unintentionally- and not at all to her surprise. One of the first things she had noticed since starting to share the bed again, was that Aram slept restlessly since his accident. He was usually a side sleeper, but with injuries all down his right side it was hard for him to find a comfortable position. He was stuck with lying on his back and he couldn't fall into as deep a sleep as he usually did, instead spending the night tossing and turning his head back and forth across the pillow, and occasionally mumbling under his breath –which in turn, occasionally woke her up too.

For the most part, Samar wasn't overly fazed by it... Until a name passed Aram's lips in his slumber that she hadn't expected to hear.

A name that was familiar, but that she had hoped never to hear again, and even in her half asleep state it echoed excruciatingly in her brain.

_...Elise._

/*/*/*/*

**_THURSDAY MORNING..._ **

Aram buzzed about the kitchen. For one, it had been another good week as far as progressing with Samar was concerned. They were talking more each day, they were going out and about after she came home from work to places that had been their regular haunts before his accident so that he could rediscover what he loved about each of them, and he was quickly finding more and more things about her that intrigued him too.  

And secondly, at now just over four weeks since his accident, Aram's broken bones still weren't completely healed, but the pain was notably fading. He could cough now, if he needed to, without feeling the pain reverberate through his chest. He still needed the cast for his arm and the sling for his collarbone, but now he could at least move around a little within those, and it didn't hurt so much. He could take the sling off just long enough to clumsily attempt to dress himself without needing help –though Samar continued to stand close by, just in case he got stuck- and more importantly, he could manoeuvre his sling around to start using that other hand for things like trying to help make dinner.

But for right now, he would happily settle for making Samar's morning coffee for her.  

It was, after all, Valentine's Day, and while jumping straight into the deep end of a relationship with Samar still seemed daunting, Aram couldn't deny that flickering of attraction to her, nor how much he appreciated her standing by him over the last four weeks.

So, hopefully at the end of the day he would be able to make her dinner but for now at least, he definitely wanted to make her coffee... If only he could remember how she took it.

It frustrated Aram that he had no idea how Samar liked her coffee; that he had clearly not paid enough attention over the last few weeks to her making her own coffee every morning, to see how she did it. He had always liked making coffee and other such small gestures for those he cared about, and Aram was sure that before his accident he would have regularly doted on Samar by making her morning coffee and bringing it to her. Of course, he wasn't sure where that idea came from, but the more Aram thought about it, the more he was adamant that it was an idea he liked and something he would have done... And that he'd like to do again now.

If only he could _remember._

Aram gave a quick, frustrated shake of his head as he stared at the coffee machine. For this morning he would have to settle for letting it whir until it was ready, then serving up the full pot of its glorious, caffeinated brew alongside a small pitcher of cream and an even smaller dish of sugar on a serving tray with Samar's favourite mug, ready for her to put it together however she pleased.  

And Aram was determined to make sure he paid attention this time.  

With his one good hand, he moved the mug, coffee pot, and everything else all onto the tray one at a time, shifting them around until he was pleased with the way they all looked sitting there together. He pushed the tray along the counter until it sat at the far end –the first thing Samar would see when she walked into the living area. Aram had timed it all just so, pushing the tray into place just as he heard the alarm clock go off in the bedroom at Samar's usual time, and it only took a few more minutes after that before she sleepily ambled in from the hallway, still in her sleep shorts and his old MIT shirt, yawning and pushing back the hair off her face.  

'Morning,' Aram greeted her, breaking into a grin where he stood eagerly awaiting at the end of the counter, just behind the tray.    
'Morning,' Samar grumbled quietly back.  
'I wanted to make you coffee, but then I realised I don't know how you take-' he stopped mid-rambling, taking in the irritable expression on her face '-uh,' Aram began again, cautiously this time, 'everything ok?'  
'Do you remember Elise?' The question was flat; dangerously neutral rather than either upbeat or notably upset. It was as if she wasn't happy, but also too tired to invest any other emotion into it either. Aram blinked; the name suddenly rang a bell.    
'Yeah...' He curiously trailed off, thinking about it for a moment. As soon as Samar mentioned it, he remembered the dream he'd had the night before; 'I was seeing her for a while, right?' Samar tried desperately to hold back a grimace at the memory, but only partly succeeded.    
'Do you remember Janet?' That question was lower, slower, and with a twinge of disappointment. Aram furrowed his brow in confusion.    
'Who?' He asked. Samar hesitated for a moment rather than respond. She steadied herself; she hadn't really wanted to have that conversation. She had hoped that _if_ Aram remembered that time, he would remember it all in full... But there they were. 'Samar, who's Janet?' Aram pushed again, anxious now. Whoever Janet was, it was clear that it was something that bothered her -and if something bothered Samar, Aram wanted to know exactly what it was.    
'Elise,' Samar sighed. _'Elise_ was Janet.'

Aram furrowed his brow in confusion even more so as Samar took a breath. Whatever it was that she knew and he didn't, in an instant Aram knew it wasn't going to be good.  

...And then she began to explain.

She explained that Elise wasn't the sweet and innocent girl he had thought she was. She explained that Elise was actually Janet, a spy hired to use him as a way into the Post Office's network and then feed that information back to people who had been after Liz and Reddington. She explained that somehow, despite that all that, he had gone back to Janet again afterwards... And finally, Samar explained that Janet's betrayal and his tumultuous relationship with her had led to arguments, hurt, miscommunication and mistrust between them that had nearly destroyed every last thread of their friendship forever.

Aram didn't know what to say. He remembered the early days and that warm buzz of a new relationship with Elise, but he had no memory of Janet, the end of their relationship, or how he had ended up going from Janet to Samar. If anything, he barely even remembered in what year or season that relationship with Elise had taken place.

All he remembered was that sweet, blonde girl with the infectious smile that he had met at the gym.  

'So, basically,' he glumly spoke again, 'that really wasn’t a great few months for us.'  
'Not particularly,' Samar murmured back.  
'I'm sorry.' Aram bowed his head, clearly disheartened. He had woken up in such an enthusiastic mood, only for it to be completely dashed; and not because Samar did anything wrong. If what she had just told him was true –and Aram had no reason to suspect that it wasn't- then he didn't blame her for feeling stung by him talking about his ex in his sleep, after all that Samar had done for him in the last few weeks.  

Samar winced at his sorrowful tone though, slowly letting out a breath. Already, she regretted bringing it up at all. She had been so disgruntled when she heard Aram say Elise's name, and even more so when her alarm had gone off after sleeping restlessly for the rest of the night.  

But now the frustration was already wearing off.  

'It's not your fault,' she said softly -or at least, it wasn't his fault in the current moment, anyway. The difficult times they had been through back then were more debatable, but that wasn't the issue anymore. The fact that Aram didn't remember, and the fact that they had to bring up those difficult memories all over again certainly wasn't his fault... It was simply the reality. As Aram's memories came back, it would feel as if they had to relive each and every one of them, both the good and the bad.  

Samar tried to shoot him a tiny smile. She could see the coffee and how much effort that Aram had put into preparing it for her. He was trying, _really_ trying, to get things back on track lately, and Samar adored him for it. She reached out for his good hand on the counter, resting her fingertips atop his and giving them a gentle, reassuring squeeze until Aram let out a tiny smile of his own again.

If only reliving those bad memories didn't have to be quite so painful.

/*/*/*/*

**_THURSDAY NIGHT..._ **

'Samar,' Aram's quiet but curious voice broke the silence between them. Not only had making dinner proven to be still too difficult a challenge but even if it hadn't, the day's caseload at the Post Office had meant that Samar didn't return home until later than usual. As soon as Aram had read her text to say that she would be back late, he had known that dinner wasn't meant to be –or at least, not in the sense that he had been hoping for. Samar would be tired, and that meant nothing too elaborate. It meant something comfortable and easy was in order, and that was something Aram could still do.

He had walked the few blocks over to the convenience store in search of the most chocolate-filled ice cream he could find, and had it served up in bowls on the dining table, either side of a small vase of fresh, colourful carnations, ready for as soon as she pushed open the front door.

It wasn't much, but in the scheme of things... It was everything.  

And now, getting ready for bed at the close of yet another day, they were both tired but glad all the same. There air was more than clear between them again now and as Aram shuffled out of the bathroom towards where she sat at the foot of the bed, pulling back her hair into a loose braid, Samar gave a sleepy smile.  

'Mmm?' She hummed in response.    
'After those rough few months with Elise-' Aram hesitantly began and then paused, quickly correcting himself '-Janet-' he shook his head '-how did we go from that to-' one hand gestured awkwardly back and forth between them '-this?' Samar quickly glanced up at him. Somehow, she wasn't entirely surprised by the question; Aram had been quiet and off in his own thoughts all evening –at least, aside from his excitement over the ice cream. It wasn't necessarily a bad mood, just that he was still processing the earlier overload of information... And ever since then, Samar had been waiting for whichever question ended up the result of his internal dilemmas over the morning's revelation.

She took a breath, contemplating that question for a moment.

'We weren't in a great place,' Samar began. She kept her voice slow and thoughtful; 'our friendship was deteriorating and we both hated it, but when she betrayed you the second time-' her eyes narrowed in annoyance for a split second at the memory '-before you _realised_ she had-' Samar tilted her head, shooting him a wistful smile '-I chose not to tell you. I knew what she'd done, but I saw how happy she was making you, and I just... Couldn't break your heart like that. When you found out, you asked me about it, and then everything just sort of happened-'

Samar's last word was cut off as Aram leaned in, running one hand along her cheek and pressing his lips to hers. His one good arm wrapped around her and she clutched as his shirt, desperately trying to pull him closer. Aram let her pull him in, gladly. All at once it felt strange and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but as she opened her mouth to let him in just a little more, he was more than happy to oblige. She rose to her feet from the edge of the bed, _anything_ to be closer. Her hands began to sweep up and down his sides and around his back, eagerly exploring every inch of him, and Aram suddenly found his own hand doing the same.

...Until they just couldn't breathe any longer.

'Like that?' He gasped, both of them quickly catching their breaths.  
'Just like that,' she whispered back. An overwhelming wave of deep longing washed over her as Aram pulled away. Overnight, she had gone from having a long term relationship with a man who would take any opportunity to wrap his arms around her and plant a kiss on her cheek, to something far more resembling newly-dating roommates with Aram wary of even so much as brushing past her. Aside from incidental moments like helping him get dressed or do anything else around the apartment, he hadn't touched her at all in weeks. She wanted that contact back. She wanted him to linger there, to not let go or break away from her lips. Perhaps it was just all the up and down emotions of the last few weeks, but all she wanted right then was for Aram to wrap his arms around her again and never let go.

But he did.  

He pulled back, still close enough that Samar could reach out and touch him if she wanted to, but no closer. He stood there, gazing back at her a little stunned by it all, his eyes wandering past her, deep in thought.  

'In front of the elevator?' Another quick film cut of memory flashed through his brain, another memory he couldn't place with any date or explanation, but with the words Samar had just said somehow echoing along with it. Little more than the quick visual of walking out of the elevator into the war room and seeing her standing in front of him, the memory was mostly the overwhelming rush of emotion as he had kissed her there.    
'More or less.'  
'I think I remember.' Aram's voice wavered slightly as he spoke, but he kept going; 'not the fights, or the betrayal, or any of the other lead up, or even anything after it, but I think I remember that kiss.' He paused, clenching his teeth in determination; 'no, I _know_ I do.'  
'But what does that mean for us now?' Samar asked quietly. She studied his face, but the expression was hard to read. Aram hesitated;  
'I don’t know.'

It was a whirlwind. He thought she was beautiful and strong, smart and kind. He felt that flickering of attraction loud and clear. He remembered that kiss and he knew it was real... But in Aram's mind, in all that he knew, he had only known that gorgeous woman in front of him for a grand total of four and a half weeks.  

'Maybe... What if,' he slowly spoke again, the conviction starting to rise again in his voice with each word; 'we just start slowly?'

Samar broke into the tiniest of soft smiles. She reached out, her fingertips tracing that soft stubble of his jawline.  

Slowly wouldn't be easy, but it was far better than nothing. They were the words she had been expecting and waiting for, for what felt like an eternity, and now they made her heart leap for joy.  

It was a start... And that was all she needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, a whole lot of fluff, ready for a little more angst after it, in 'Snuggle Fever'. All I can say is it's beta approved, and you should all know by now how my beta feels about fluff... :P
> 
> In the meantime; if you love it, please don't forget to comment?


	6. Snuggle Fever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Sunday, February 24, 2019
> 
> This chapter is for my beta who, when I said this chapter would need to be fluffy, said "the only fluffiness I will accept is the kind attached to small animals." So... Here you go, folks! :D

**_SUNDAY..._ **

Samar's eyes flickered slowly open. She let out a sleepy sigh of contentment; there was a faint glow of sunlight creeping in through the cracks in the bedroom curtains –just enough for a sunrise without the morning glaring into her eyes. The air around the room was cool but not freezing, and the bed was as comfortably toasty as the covers wrapped around her were soft and cosy.  

_ Actually...  _

Samar blinked the sleep from her eyes. There was a reason that the always pleasant Sunday morning lie in suddenly seemed even more blissful. She rolled slightly, breaking into a soft smile; it wasn't just the covers wrapped warm and cosy around her for once, but Aram as well.  

Somehow, that didn't surprise her. At his final appointment the day before –and now six weeks on since the accident- he had finally been set free from his cast and sling. Aram had been ecstatic; it seemed such a minor milestone but despite the fact that he still had to be gentle with his right hand side, now he could  _ move _ normally again. He could dress and undress himself, he could wash his own hair, and of all the things he could be most excited about; he could  _ sleep _ comfortably on his side again. The noise that had erupted from his throat as he had crawled into bed beside her the night before and finally rolled onto his side had been one of such unequivocal, instant relief and pleasure, it had been almost moan-like. Samar hadn't been able to stop herself from letting out a chuckle, but Aram hadn't cared. At last he was comfortable, and within minutes he was sound asleep. 

The night had been one of deep and restful slumber for him for the first time in weeks. Aram didn't wake up once during the night –in fact, he had barely moved at all. The tossing and turning was gone and so now, waking up again the next morning, Samar wasn't at all surprised to find that it had been replaced by his arms wrapping around her again as they always had done, holding her close with his hands bunched in her shirt and his face buried in her hair.  

It didn't matter that his conscious memory remembered little of her. His subconscious, on the other hand, could settle itself back into its old routines easily.  

It was bittersweet, but Samar smiled and allowed her eyes to fall softly closed again anyway. She was in no hurry to go anywhere, and it seemed a shame to move and wake Aram up from his first truly restful sleep in a while. Not to mention, it was a relief to her as well to have him wrapped around her again for the first time since before the accident. Samar wasn't about to burst that sweet, blissful bubble and wake him up before it was necessary... And so she laid there, simply enjoying that warmth and comfort until Aram too, finally began to stir. He shifted behind her, burying his face even deeper into her hair as if attempting desperately to block out the daylight, while his reluctantly waking brain fought on to return to the realm of sleep. Samar rolled back, just enough to gaze back at him. 

'Morning,' she whispered to him.   
'Mmm...' Aram mumbled back, under his breath. His eyes flickered open, staring sleepily back at her; 'good morning.' Still his arms remained wrapped around her for a moment, until it registered in his brain just how close she actually was. Aram blinked, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights at the sudden sensation of his hands resting on smooth skin just under the bottom edge of her shirt; 'uh, how long have you been awake?' His voice wavered as he asked the question. His first instinct was to immediately recoil –out of sheer horror at having invaded the personal space of someone who in his mind, he had only been dating for about a week and a half- but quickly he forced himself to remember the reality. Samar wasn't a stranger, and if the look on her face was any indication, the notion of her having a problem with waking up wrapped in his arms couldn't have been further from the truth. Aram disentangled himself from her, but as he rolled and shifted back to his own side of the bed, he shot her a sheepish smile all the same. Samar simply broke into an amused smirk.  
'Long enough,' she mused. 'I’m used to it, remember?' She rolled over a little more again, stretching across the pillows to dot a quick kiss to his cheek before clambering reluctantly out of bed and letting out a yawn. 'Besides-' halfway around the bed she paused on the spot, glancing back over her shoulder at him with her smirk widening into a far more teasing grin '-when your side regains its strength, you'll rediscover that I'm not much better when it comes to invading personal space while asleep.' 

/*/*/*/* 

Aram's lack of restlessness in his sleep transformed overwhelmingly into the opposite in his waking state. After weeks spent doing little more than watching television or at most, going for short walks, his new found freedom in moving his arms around again had him desperately wanting to do just that. Just about everything that needed doing around the apartment –from meals and washing dishes, to sweeping and vacuuming, and opening every door for Samar any time he saw her move- he raced to do. It took everything Samar had to not grow frustrated with Aram's cleaning bug poking around and trying to sweep under her feet, or his sprints to open doors nearly barrelling her over entirely. It was as if his newly healed arm was stir crazy and to a certain extent, Samar understood. It wasn't Aram's fault and he wasn't _ trying _ to be annoying, but as he leapt ahead of her into the kitchen to pull her favourite coffee mug down off the high shelf for her, Samar couldn't help but wince. 

And so far, it was barely lunch time. 

Samar took a breath, steadying herself and waiting an extra second for that latest flash of irritation to pass.  

'Ok,' she sighed, shooting him a weary smile; 'grab your coat.' Aram did a double take, his earlier enthusiastic grin suddenly vanishing and being replaced with a more confused expression. He opened his mouth to ask why, or where on earth they were going, but Samar had already turned, muttering to herself and shaking her head as she headed down the hall and reached for her own coat; 'we need to get out of this apartment.' 

/*/*/*/* 

Aram remained curious for the entire ten minute walk that Samar led him on from their apartment. She, in the meantime, remained tight lipped –instead enjoying burning off his restless energy by making him scuttle madly along after her while he begged her to tell him where. The only thing even vaguely resembling a clue as to where they were going was the fact that they were walking instead of driving, meaning that it had to be relatively close by, but other than that Aram had no idea. 

...Until they arrived, and Aram's eyes widened in puzzled delight at the sight of the front of the building.  

'The Snuggle Hut?' He curiously read off the sign.    
'Mmhmmm,' Samar hummed back. She broke into a wry smile, holding open the door and gesturing for him to hurry through; 'It's been a favourite place of yours for a while now.' 

Aram couldn't help but gasp as he walked in, taking little notice of Samar following close on his heels and the door falling softly closed behind them.  

All around him were animals. Rescues, it seemed, both baby and adult, cats and dogs on either side of the entryway, separated from that space by glass walls. The entry area was only small, with the overwhelming majority of the total area –almost the size of a small warehouse- dedicated to the furry inhabitants and their need for space.  

Samar broke into a soft smile at the look of delight on Aram's face, watching him crouch down by the glass to peer at the creatures within. The Snuggle Hut was a local shelter, run by just two or three permanent staff and a whole variety of community members who volunteered when they could. It was designed not just for the rehabilitation and potential rehoming of local strays, or the rescue of litters from exploitative mills, but also for the benefit of those local volunteers who couldn't necessarily adopt a pet due to landlord or other accommodation based restrictions, but who still loved spending time with animals nonetheless.  

Aram rose to his feet once more, wordlessly panning his gaze all around the room in amazed disbelief as he followed Samar through the door from the entry way into the main play area for the puppies and dogs.  

'All these people...' He observed softly, noting the ambling volunteers waving at them with warm recognition in their eyes. 'They know me?'   
'And the animals too,' Samar said, nodding, 'but the humans know what's going on. They called me a week or so ago, asking if we were ok seeing as they hadn't seen us in a while.' Barely had Samar finished the sentence, when a black Labrador puppy bounded across the room towards Aram. 'That's Lulu,' Samar observed, as Aram immediately crouched down to greet the goofy furball burrowing her head against his hands. 'She's-' Lulu lifted her front paws, eagerly clambering up onto Aram's knees and nearly knocking him over in the attempt to lick his face '-a _ bit  _ jumpy.'   
'But still cute,' Aram grinned. He scratched behind Lulu's ears and then all over her, the grin on his face only growing wider and wider by the second when the dark ball of fur rolled around at his feet begging for a belly rub. Another pup –a Spaniel cross, this time- and then another and then another, all came bounding up to him one after the other, all of them recognising Aram and joyfully demanding his attention until he simply had no hands left to spare. He turned his head –barely missing another long, drool covered tongue licking his face- beaming up at her; 'we volunteer here?'  
'Every couple of weeks when we have a spare day.' Samar crouched down beside him, scratching behind the ears of another dog that Aram couldn't identify; 'sometimes we help with tidying up, sometimes with feeding and bathing, or walking them to the park down the road, and sometimes it's just a matter of playing with them for the socialisation.' It had been Aram’s idea to visit the shelter when it had first started, and she had just followed along in the name of humouring him -but even Samar couldn’t deny, those rare days they had spent there had always been enjoyable. Since the accident though, she hadn't wanted to bring Aram along and reintroduce him to it all before his injuries were healed; he would have wanted so desperately to jump straight back in and do everything, but at the same time been heartbroken by the fact that he couldn't do all that he wanted to with one arm out of action... But now that not only did he have the full range of movement restored to his right side, but all the restlessness as well, it was the perfect time to bring him back.  

Here, his bug to do everything humanly possible and then some, would actually be appreciated and even contribute something helpful.  

She couldn't help but chuckle as the small crowd of dogs of all sizes finally managed to topple Aram off his crouching toes and make him fall backwards, laughing helplessly at the four sets of eager paws and wagging tails pouncing playfully all over him.  
'I think it's safe to say they remember you.' 

Food and water bowls were refilled, fur-covered blankets were placed in a basket to be washed and then replaced with the freshly washed ones. The next round of monthly flea treatments were delivered to pups and kittens all around the facility, and the wide grooming area was swept and cleaned down all over again. Aram buzzed all around, all too eagerly getting back into the swing of everything that needed doing. He had no memory at all of ever being there before that day, but his delight at rediscovering it was at a level that he couldn't even begin to describe with words. That grin remained stretched wide from ear to ear across his face as he seemed to outpace every other volunteer there. 

As the restlessness wore off, and just about every other volunteered for the day slowly returned home, Aram found himself thoroughly worn out but utterly content. He sat on the floor with one knee pulled up to his chin, on the cat side of the facility this time, cradling the youngest, newly rescued kitten quietly in his arms. At just six weeks old, she was the only one of a litter to have survived a winter storm a few weeks earlier after being born on the streets. The vets who volunteered for The Snuggle Hut hadn't been sure at first if the tiny, apricot coloured kitten would survive even after being found alone and rescued, but in a combination of being taken under the wing of one of the Hut's older cats and being hand-cared for by all the volunteers, their tiniest inhabitant was miraculously managing to pull through.  

Aram's fingertips ran slowly through that soft ball of fur nestled into his chest that barely weighed any more than a pound. The kitten was sound asleep there, soothed by his warmth, and didn't react at all to Samar quietly sitting down beside Aram and then stroking her own gentle fingertips along tiny, velvet soft ears.  

'Tired now?' She whispered.    
'Definitely,' Aram murmured back. He glanced back at her, bowing his head slightly with a sheepish smile; 'but that was probably a much better use for my energy today.' Samar's eyes simply crinkled with a wry amusement for a moment, before tipping her head in the direction of the two permanent staff across the room from them.   
'They appreciate it,' she said softly.    
'Think they'll get sick of me if I come by every day for the next week or so until I'm allowed back at work?' Aram chuckled quietly. Ever so slowly and gently so as not to wake the tiny kitten, he shifted on the spot to lower her back into the blanket lined box under the incandescent lamp next to him. The ball of faint ginger fur rolled and twisted in the box, curling back up again amongst the layers once it found the most comfortable spot, and then went still once more. Aram paused there, watching on wistfully for a moment longer before finally rising to his feet. With a tired but friendly wave across the room to the two remaining staff, it was time for the walk home. Samar draped one arm around his back as they stepped back out onto the street.  
'I think they'll miss you when we get you back.'  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, Aram returns to work at last, in 'Just Breathe'


	7. Just Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Monday, March 11, 2019.
> 
> To the anon who sent in the tumblr ask the other day about refreshing ao3 every day, here you go! Enjoy :)

**_MONDAY..._ **

Samar wasn't sure Aram was ready. His cast and sling had been off for two weeks, and he was all too enthusiastic to try and get things back on track, but that didn't stop Samar from worrying about how Aram would cope with returning to the hectic caseload when he still had next to no memory of their last five years' worth of case history.

But he had passed his mandatory, post-trauma, Bureau-ordered psych evaluation and so, Samar was overruled. Aram was back in the office, pleased to see that his desk and the war room still looked much the same as he could remember.  

He had a quick summary of the last five years' major events; from Liz's time on the run through to Reddington's temporarily crumbling empire and bankruptcy and then some, but that was it.  

For the most part, Aram managed to get on with the workload without issue, only starting to stress when he realised that the security protocols on his computer and the building network were different, and far _stronger_ now than he'd had them five years earlier, meaning that he had to figure what how he had changed them to get back into the system again. After that though, he was off and running as if he had never left. All at once, he was running comms, facial recognition searches, tracking suspects' phones, and then some. For a brief moment, he even paused to remember that cold case file hidden in his desk drawer at home.

When he quickly flicked through the cabinets of case files from the last five years to catch up some more, he kept an eye out for anything similar to that file that was just starting to irk him... But nothing caught his attention.  

Regardless, Aram pressed on.

It was when Liz was out following up something with Reddington, and Ressler and Samar were chasing down a suspect in the field, that an unsettled feeling came to dwell in his gut. There was an uneasiness about the situation they were running into –that _Samar_ was running into; an armed, borderline deranged serial killer out for blood, who was hiding out in an old factory warehouse. Aram had little information as to what they might find there, but that didn't stop the off feeling. He listened in on the comms to them going two separate directions in the attempt to cut the killer off, somehow feeling more and more apprehensive the closer they seemed to get. That unsettled feeling was one he had no memory of and yet, it seemed so painfully familiar...

...And then he heard the yell.

It wasn't easy when the comms were audio only and he couldn't actually _see_ what was going on, but that yell Aram could hear was unmistakable. Samar had reached her target and moved to take him down, but he was fighting back... And at easily twice her size, he was holding his ground and then some. Aram was frozen on the edge of his seat, wanting to do something _–anything-_ but knowing he was powerless to stop it from his desk. He could hear Samar gasping in pain, he could hear a thud of a body being slammed to the ground and the cool rattle of a weapon being knocked out of a hand and tossed to the ground. He could hear Ressler yelling back through the comms, asking where she was and what was happening, but for some reason Samar gave no response.  

Aram's stomach churned at that. Samar's comms went silent aside from the sound of her laboured breathing, and Aram found his own breathing, his own heart rate, growing faster and faster to match and then surpass hers entirely. He had no idea what was going on and panic was setting in... And then it felt as if the world was flashing around him. Aram felt sick. Suddenly it was as if the war room around him disappeared and all he could see was Samar bleeding out from some kind of stab wound, or a bullet wound, or both. Somehow he could see her nearly hanging to death from chains, and wheezing painfully with some kind of deadly chest infection.  

The fact that none of that made sense all together barely even registered in Aram's brain. He breathed fast and shallow, bent anxiously over his desk with his heart threatening to practically thump straight out of his chest.  

/*/*/*/*

Aram was frantic. Back and forth he paced across the war room. To a certain extent, when Cooper had told him that Samar and Ressler were on their way back with their suspect in custody, Aram had heard him –but there was a disconnect in his brain between hearing the words and making that next logical step of understanding exactly what they meant. He knew they were on their way back and yet at the same time, it felt like he couldn't breathe.

As soon as those heavy elevator doors rumbled slowly open, Aram lurched forwards.

'Samar,' he gasped.  
'Hey...' Her brow furrowed in confusion. She was a little roughed up from having been pulled down to the ground to tussle with the man Ressler now had in cuffs, but Aram was wide eyed with panic –and far more than she would have thought necessary. He stared not quite at her but just past her, still seeing those other images flashing before his eyes. Samar reached out, grasping one of his hands and giving it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. She had no idea what was suddenly running through his brain but whatever it was, it had him rattled. 'It's ok,' she whispered, 'I'm ok-' she darted forwards to close the gap between them, softly leaning her cheek against his until she felt the tension finally start to ease from his shoulders '-just breathe.'

'I thought-' Aram squeezed his eyes shut and then quickly opened them again. He blinked, staring at Samar standing there in front of him bruised and tired, but otherwise unharmed. Aram shook his head; she wasn't shot, or kidnapped, or thrown down a staircase. She wasn't dangling from chains, attacked with a knife, or infected by any kind of bioweapon. She stood there calm, watching him in concern... And the more Aram tried to get his thoughts straight, the more confusing they seemed to be.  

He took a moment, forcing himself to simply breathe and slow his adrenaline rushed heart rate instead.

She couldn't have been thrown down a staircase, dangling from chains, or any of the other things all at the same time. In Aram's panic, he had remembered the sensation of panicking for her safety before, with each and every one of those situations coming back to him in an overwhelming blur until it was almost as if they were happening all at once.  

'I just, uh...' He spoke again, and finally met her eye, 'remember you being hurt before, I think.' The breath caught in Samar's throat at that; Aram had always worried about her in the field, but just like so many other memories that had come back to him thus far, this was far from the way she would have wanted it to happen.    
'Which time?' She asked quietly. Aram shook his head, still trying to separate each of those blurring bursts of memory from all of the others.  
'I'm not sure,' he murmured. 'They're all quick flashes without context.'  

Just like his other returning memories, the visual was limited and lacking any indicator of when they actually happened, but the emotion was painfully clear.

And it was that emotion that made him feel as if he was suddenly drowning in those lost years all over again.

/*/*/*/*

Samar's heart ached as she watched him. Even after they were home and the shock had more or less worn off, Aram still couldn't get any of those new images out of his head. Little bit by little bit they were growing clearer, with new details bursting in uninvited at random and unexpected intervals, making them more and more upsetting. His brain swirled with panic and anxiety over what felt like an endless slideshow of all Samar's least pleasant field experiences now that he actually remembered them. Samar stood right in front of him where he sat on the couch with his head in his hands and yet, he barely seemed to recognise that she was there at all. Haunted by the last highlight reel she would ever want him to have to see, he sat stunned, blinking the hot tears away.  

'Aram,' she began. Aram gave no response. 'Aram,' she repeated, a little louder this time. It took an extra beat, but he finally glanced sorrowfully up at her; 'let me show you something.' Aram's eyes widened as Samar quickly began to lift her shirt, pulling it straight up over her head.  
'What are you do-' Aram hurriedly tried to ask, but suddenly stopped mid-sentence his eyes darted not to the curves of her bare skin, but to the scar across the left side of her abdomen. His fingers outstretched almost instinctively, with Samar catching them just as quickly and holding them there, tracing that faint but long, shimmering, silver line across her golden brown skin. Aram could only stare at it, wondering which of those many haunting memories flashing through his brain had caused it.    
'That was the first time you had to worry about me being hurt,' Samar said softly. 'One of our earliest cases together, a man tried to start a new plague epidemic. I tackled him to the ground to stop him... We tussled and he released it right in my face, and then he shot me-' she gestured at the scar again '-just here. The team found the cure, and the doctors stitched me up. It hurt for a few weeks, but I was ok.' Samar paused for a moment; again, Aram didn't respond, but his gaze remained focused on that scar. He was listening, _clinging_ to the story. 'And when I woke up in the hospital, you were there,' Samar added, 'nobody else but you... Just sitting there, worrying about me even though you barely knew me at that point.'  

Aram squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head.  

'This isn't really helping,' he croaked. Still, he felt nauseous.

But Samar went on.

'The point is I'm ok,' she repeated, quiet but firm all at once. 'All those moments you're remembering? They were scary then, but I survived every one of them. I'm here now, and I'm ok.' With every word, the conviction grew stronger in her voice; 'just focus on that.' She held Aram's gaze, pausing just long enough for him to take a breath; 'do you remember what you did in the hospital after I woke up?' She asked. Aram wordlessly shook his head, furrowing his brow. 'They brought me a tray of food and said I had to eat all of it if I wanted to go home, to show that I could keep it down. I got through just about all of it except the Jell-O.' Samar couldn't help but let out a grimace; 'it was a weird, artificial orange flavour that made me want to gag, but I knew I couldn't leave it there. You just grinned, took it from my hand, and gulped it down, then put it back on the tray as if I'd eaten it myself.' Aram's eyes widened slightly in surprise.  

The reassurance that she was ok only went so far, but the story... That story focusing on just one memory at a time forced Aram's brain to do the same. It forced the horror show to start to fade from his eyes, and the nausea in his stomach to start to settle. One memory of Samar nearly dying still left him shaken, but it was nothing compared to some half a dozen all at once. It was just enough of a break to refocus and to draw breath.  

'When the nurse came back into the room, she was none the wiser,' Samar mused again. 'For the next couple of days after that until they let me go home, you kept eating the orange Jell-O for me so I wouldn't have to.' Aram let out a watery smile. As was the case for so many of the stories that Samar told him, he had no memory of the moment in question, but he was overwhelmingly relieved to hear that it happened.    
'I like orange Jell-O,' he said. His voice was so quiet, it was barely audible... But it was a response that he could finally string together, and that filled Samar with relief. She slipped her arms over Aram's shoulders, interlocking her fingers behind his head and gently pulled him in close until her forehead leaned softly against his. Almost as if on autopilot, Aram found his arms wrapping around her waist in response, holding her there. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to try and focus on _anything_ else; that sensation of her soft, bare skin on his, the faint sound of her heart beating against his chest, and the rosy scent of her shampoo on the loose strands of hair falling free from her pony tail and brushing against his cheek –all in all, the things that were _real._ They were the things that he could see and touch, unlike the memories which were just that; haunting images of times passed now long ago.  

'It's probably the only flavour I _don't_ like,' Samar said, breaking into a wry smile at the memory, 'but it was the only one they had, and you saved me from the trauma of having to choke it down for three days straight.'    
'I'm glad I could save you from something,' Aram muttered back. Samar shifted her head just enough to press a slow kiss to his cheek and Aram leaned into it, gladly.    
'Every one of those situations you're remembering has a story like that,' she whispered, 'and I'll tell you all of them if you want... Just not all at once, ok?'

Aram nodded wordlessly against her cheek but other than that, he barely moved at all. Still wrapped around her in the middle of the living room with the cool of the floorboards against the bottom of his feet, he didn't _want_ to move. For the sake of reassuring himself, he needed to hold her for just a moment longer, and Samar was more than happy to let him. Their relationship was such a fragile one, dependent on the notion of trusting her to guide him back to the present after those five years lost. The emotions were complicated, torn between what he knew he was supposed to feel and the newer feelings he was discovering all over again, and the painful, emotional memories barging in unexpected out of nowhere did nothing to help. They were trying to take off again from rocky ground, and the key to dealing with those memories was precisely the same as that for returning to work and even for rebuilding their relationship from that very ground; slow and steady.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, 'Milestone Reflections'... And eventually, that case file will come back to haunt them *evil cackle*


	8. Milestone Reflections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Saturday-Sunday, March 23-24, 2019.

**_SATURDAY MORNING..._ **

Aram awoke to an unexpected but not at all unpleasant weight across his chest. 

_ Samar. _

She had said weeks earlier that at some point, he would rediscover that she too had a habit of occasionally invading personal space in her sleep and now, there she was. 

Sprawled, almost sideways across him, with her fists bunched up in his shirt and her face buried in his chest.  

Aram didn't even try to stifle the grin; he had already learned quietly for himself that she was adorable when asleep –almost just as quickly as he had learned that it was something he would never,  _ ever _ say aloud to her unless he wanted her to inflict some kind of agonising pain- but this was different, and well... She was warm, and she was soft... And Aram couldn't deny in the slightest that waking up with Samar snuggled into him was kind of nice. 

_ Very _ nice, actually, if he was being honest with himself.  

Or at least, aside from the fact that he had to pee but at the same time, he didn't want to wriggle his way out from under her and then inadvertently wake her up either.  

Aram ran gentle fingertips through those dark, tangled curls, trying to direct his focus back to Samar rather than the pressing needs of his bladder for a few more minutes. In the last couple of weeks since the return to work and all those flashes of Samar being hurt, Aram had uncovered no new memories of her... Though he had  _ learned _ plenty of new information just from living with her. Despite the lack of memory, it wasn't hard at all to see what might have attracted him to her originally, but curiously enough she was the sort of woman he never would have expected to end up with; the sort of strong, confident, kickass agent who would normally never look at him twice nor take him seriously... And yet, Samar did. Sure, she didn't even understand half of his over excited tech speak or his –admittedly- geeky interests, but she never looked down on him for them as so many others had done before. She didn't consider him a lesser member of their team just because he was their technical analyst rather than a field agent kicking down doors. Aram had wondered what their working dynamic would be when he returned to the office again, but he had quickly learned that he had no reason to worry; Samar respected him for exactly what he was, and considered him just as valuable a member of their force as any of the others.  

Now, watching her sleep in his arms for a moment longer, Aram pondered what it was that had drawn them together the first time around... But perhaps it was exactly that. Perhaps it was exactly those same things drawing him to her all over again now, or perhaps it was something else entirely that he hadn't rediscovered yet. For as much as he could re-learn all the things he had once said and done as the people around him now told him, the things he had once thought or even  _ felt _ were different; they could only ever come back to him if his memories did or if he experienced the exact same situations all over again... And in the meantime, Aram could only wonder.  

Allowing himself to fall back in love with a stranger was odd like that.  

Samar beginning to stir jolted Aram from his internal musings and back to the land of the present. She shuffled and twisted in his arms, stretching slightly and muttering disgruntledly under her breath before finally lifting her head just enough from his chest to stare, dopey-eyed, back at him.  

'When you said you'd probably end up falling asleep on top of me, I didn't realise this was what you meant,' Aram said softly. His eyes crinkled with a hint of amusement and Samar blinked, taking an extra sleepy second to register what he actually said.    
'Sorry.' The word was obscured by a yawn and the hand trying to cover it but not quite getting there fast enough, though Aram still knew what she meant. 'Want me to move?'  
'No,' Aram said quickly, 'well, yes. I mean-' he let out a wince '-it's nice, but uh, I kind of need the bathroom, so...' At last, Samar was awake enough to keep up, and her lips curled into a teasing smirk. Slowly, she pushed herself off his chest and shuffled back across to her side of the bed, allowing Aram to lurch from his own and go bounding towards the bathroom door. 

No sooner had Aram washed his hands and turned towards the towel rack, than Samar appeared in the doorway behind him, smiling that sleepy but all too flirtatious smile at him that she so loved to do in the mornings. She brushed slowly past him on her own way to the sink; there was more than enough space in the bathroom for them both to move around and go about their morning routines easily, but the brushing past him was about that soft contact in spite of the space. It was just enough to run fingertips quickly over his arm and dot an affectionate kiss to his cheek in passing; a simple, unspoken 'good morning' and 'I love you' all in one, but still with that element of subtlety that he needed in these early weeks of the new relationship they were trying to navigate.  

Aram paused as she moved to pass him, resting one hand quietly on hers where it swept across his arm, and stopping her there for a moment. Samar glanced up curiously, breaking into a different sort of smile as his fingers gently squeezed her own in acknowledgement.  

He was more than comfortable now with Samar in his space, kissing his cheek and all those other affectionate gestures that she did, but ever since that first time he had kissed her weeks earlier and agreed to start things slowly, Aram's own tactile gestures in kind had been sporadic. More often than not they were a response to her gestures rather than initiating any of his own, and they were never anything beyond the level of an arm around her, holding her close. Knowing but not remembering left him somewhere awkwardly in the middle and he was still trying to figure out at what level they were supposed to be. He accepted what they were, but struggled to figure out how to comfortably express his jumbled mess of endlessly confusing feelings.  

But Samar understood. Aram was still processing, and that was something that would only be able to figure itself out with time... And in the meantime, his pause there now, smiling shyly at her kiss and squeezing her hand after waking up the way they had was an important moment that meant far more than anyone watching them could possibly have realised.  

Of course, that wasn't to say that there wasn't a growing impatience to resume some of the more physical aspects of their relationship –an impatience that on some days, felt as if it were eating away at her inside- but Samar wasn't about to push Aram to go that far before he was ready. It wasn't so simple as the question of how soon was too soon in a  _ normal, _ new relationship; between his injuries, mood swings, and all the confusion, some milestones came earlier than usual and others came later. 

Things would happen when they happened... All out of order, but they would happen when they were ready.  

'Hey... Samar?' Aram's quiet voice broke the silence. She glanced up from the sink, one eyebrow raised quizzically in the prompt for him to continue. 'Can we not make a huge fuss of my birthday tomorrow?'    
'Sure, if that's what you really want,' Samar said slowly. She studied that thoughtful, dispirited look on his face, suddenly furrowing her brow in concern; 'everything ok?' Aram gave a hurried nod. Aside from the birthday apprehension that had left him feeling a _ little _ off for the last few days, he felt fine... But whatever it was, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it, he just didn't feel up to making a big deal of the day –especially with people he remembered hardly knowing. After the last two weeks of diving back into the deep end at work, all he really wanted –and  _ needed- _ was a quieter day.    
'Well, it's not like it's a milestone birthday,' he replied, giving a nonchalant shrug. 'I'm not forty or-' all of a sudden it felt like a light bulb switching on in his brain and Aram cut himself off, the horrified realisation quickly dawning across his face; 'oh...' He let out a low whistle; 'I  _ am  _ forty.' Of course, he knew the date and he even knew what year it was despite having lost the five previous, but once again it was as if there was a disconnect in his brain between what he knew and what it meant... And the last thing he remembered age-wise, was being thirty-four going on thirty-five.  

And now he was thirty-four going on  _ forty.  _

'I thought I still had another five years before I hit forty,' Aram gasped; 'now I'm half a decade closer than I thought I was to my hairline receding and then turning grey, and-' he whipped around on the spot, cutting off his own breathless rambling, and leaning in close to the mirror to inspect his face and hair for even the tiniest of wrinkles or the saltier of salt-and-pepper flecks.    
_ '-That's _ the biggest issue here?' A smirk couldn't help but etch its way across Samar's face as she chuckled over him. He stood there beside her, almost nose to the mirror over the sink and pulling at his face with his fingertips for reasons only he could ponder.    
'Yes. Well, no... but-' Aram turned back to face her again, letting out a sigh; 'I'm not ready to be forty.' Samar let out a snort, eyes crinkling in amusement as she gently patted his arm.    
'Well at least that's one thing that hasn't changed since the accident,' she mused. Not that Aram remembered it, but less than a month before he had been knocked off his bike, he'd had a similar moment of disgruntled realisation at the fact he was turning forty. In that particular incidence she had laughingly reassured him that he was still as adorable as ever by breaking out the most seductive –albeit still teasing- voice she could muster, and proving to him that he was  _ definitely _ still as fit as he needed to be. 

Not that she could do that again in this particular incidence, of course, but the memory still made Samar grin to herself.  

Aram's expression, on the other hand, was a far more sobered one now than it had been the first time they'd had that conversation. Now that his brain was hurriedly running through the math, it couldn't help but flash back to all the other dates he had read over the last few weeks. 

_ '1975-2014,'  _ for one, and the realisation hit him suddenly like a freight train.  

Meera had been killed just shy of her own fortieth birthday.  

/*/*/*/* 

**_SUNDAY EVENING...._ **

A quieter lunch spent catching up with his parents rather than a whole crowd, went well enough. Aram was genuinely happy to see them –almost as genuinely happy as he was not to see anyone else. The afternoon wore on and so too did the evening, and once again Aram's smile faded in favour of that more sobered, tired expression.  

'I know you said not to worry about your birthday but I did get you this,' Samar announced, drawing Aram from his thoughts and back to the present. The tone was to the point but her voice was soft, and as Aram glanced up and around from the couch he saw her standing there, just beside it. There was a gift in her hand that she held out to him, wrapped in bright purple paper, though small and without the additional flair of ribbons or bows. 'It's not huge,' Samar added, 'but I think it'll be helpful for your quiet evening.' Aram took it from her, turning it gingerly over in his hands and contemplating it for a moment before offering a tiny smile and tearing open the end. The paper fell away, and Aram suddenly furrowed his brow, switching his gaze back to Samar;   
'A journal?' He asked. It was a simple journal, but a nice one; thick with fresh and seemingly endless pages, and bound with navy blue leather. A slim strap with silver embossed waves wrapped all the way around, holding a matching pen firmly in place.    
'So you can write everything down in one place,' Samar explained. Still, her voice was soft as she watched a more thoughtful expression slowly working its way across Aram's face.  

He had been making a point of writing down all the memories that came back to him as well as all the stories people had told him of the last few years, but never with any degree of consistency. They were on whichever slip of paper he could reach first and scrawl on quickly, in case the memory somehow decided to slip away again, and they were shoved all together in an old, emptied manila case file he had found in his home desk drawer. By contrast, with the journal, he could write everything in properly and give some order to his thoughts.  

Aram broke into a soft smile. He couldn't figure out how, but somehow Samar had known exactly what he needed even before he had known himself.  

Samar quietly lowered herself onto the couch beside him, leaning her head against his shoulder and watching on as Aram, pen in hand, flicked through the pages, writing things in. He put aside a page for each of the main people in his life, their names becoming headings and followed by dot points covering his connections with them over the last few years. For every month of those five years, another page was put aside from January 2014 all the way through until January 2019, with everything Aram could remember or had been told being noted down accordingly.  

And then he went through the gaps.  

For every blank page, he asked questions, filling in the lines with every last detail Samar could think of.  

For hours they sat there, reliving everything from the traumatic to the trivial, though somehow it didn't feel like long at all. Neither one of them moved until there was at least one tiny note written in for every person and every month, and then finally... Aram could see a real progression over those few years emerging from the pages. No longer did those individual memories feel isolated or fragmented. Now, even when he had gaps in what he remembered, the things that he did remember seemed to fit together in a way that made sense.  

Aram's hand began to cramp; that much writing in one hit only a few weeks after his hand was freed from its cast was a little too far, but Aram didn't care. It felt good to have it all written down in order, and not just in a digital file that he could type away at endlessly, but in something that he could hold, something he could touch. 

Too busy with all of his other thoughts, Aram took little note of the way he tilted his head, softly burying his face in Samar's hair and pressing a slow kiss there. She had fallen asleep there beside him while he was lost in his thoughts, but Aram didn't mind that at all. 

The journal was something that actually felt  _ real _ when so many of the stories he didn't remember, did not.  

...Just like Samar.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, that case file returns with a bang, in 'Puzzle Unfolding'
> 
> In the meantime, don't forget to comment! :)


	9. Puzzle Unfolding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date: Friday, April 5, 2019

**_FRIDAY..._ **

A slightly better week back at work passed still with no new memories, but no new traumas either. The apartment was quiet, but contently so; their bellies, rumbling upon returning home after another case closed, were now as fully satisfied as their owners were tired and ready for bed. All that was left to do before they could switch off those ceiling lights and slip away to the blissfully magical land of slumber, was the dishes.  

Samar paused between putting a newly dried dish away and reaching for the pile of utensils Aram had just washed, her ears prickling at the sound of an incoming text message. On the counter across from her, the screen of her phone lit up and she took the two steps across the kitchen, breaking into a soft smile as she leaned over and glanced at the words. It wasn't much; just a quick thank you from Aram's mother that followed up on an earlier call with the request for a new recipe –but Samar smiled all the same. She glanced up, giving a good natured eye roll at their domesticity when Aram raised a single, quizzical eyebrow.  

'Your mom called me earlier today,' she mused, by way of explanation. Aram broke into a grin of surprise.    
'...My mom  _ calls _ you?' He chuckled. He knew they got along well –that was something he had discovered quickly when his parents had visited for lunch on his birthday, and his mother and Samar had immediately teamed up to gently rib him about his fear of grey hairs poking through- but it hadn't crossed his mind that they would be regularly talking to one another on the phone too.    
'Sometimes.' Samar nodded, taking those two steps back again to pick up the utensils. 'She was just checking in on how we're going.' Aram pulled the plug from the sink, the water slowly bubbling away now that the last of the dishes were scrubbed clean.  

'Do your parents ever call me?' He asked. Samar's eyes instantly snapped to his. The smile vanished from her face, and she hesitated, making Aram falter; his own amused grin disappeared too, replaced by a far more anxious expression. 'Why do I feel like I just accidentally stumbled onto a difficult subject?' He slowly spoke again, shuffling awkwardly back and forth on his feet. For a split second and despite having just asked, Aram wasn't entirely sure the answer was one he wanted to hear.    
'You've never met my parents,' Samar said quietly, 'they died when I was twelve.' She turned, dropping the utensils in their drawer and then lingering there with her back to him for a moment, catching her breath. It wasn't the easiest subject, but still it was one she could usually talk about with a relative level of composure... Though right there, when coupled with the reminder that Aram –who was arguably closer to her than anyone else before his accident- now had no idea of what had happened to her parents or any other element of her past, somehow made the topic hit even closer to home than it should have. It was yet another of those difficult conversations that forced her to relive the worst memories, just to catch him up to speed.    
'Oh...' Aram crossed the kitchen towards her, running soft fingertips along her back and bowing his head, crestfallen. 'I'm sorry,' he murmured; 'what happened?' Frankly, he wasn't sure he wanted to know that either, but he  _ needed _ to. That heartbroken look on Samar's face set off an overwhelming pang in his gut and a determination to make her feel better that was even more fierce than he would have expected. Samar turned on the spot to face him again, though still not quite meeting his gaze.  

'They were murdered,' she sighed. Samar paused, taking a quick breath in the attempt to pull herself together as she normally would; 'for speaking out against the government.' Aram winced; he wasn't sure what he had been expecting, really, but that certainly hadn't been it.  

'Did I know that before-' Aram gestured at his forehead and then the rest of his newly healed side in turn, giving a quick, frustrated shake of his head '-all this?'   
'Mmhmm.' The tiniest hint of a wistful smile tugged at the corners of her lips. 'It's another reason your mom likes to call me. I don't have any family left, so your parents kind of claimed me from the moment you first introduced us.'  
'That sounds about right.' Aram gave a slow, thoughtful nod. He was glad to hear it –and not just the fact that his parents and Samar seemed to get along well, which was promising in itself. He was glad that they were close, that they were there for her and she was there for them when he couldn't remember. 

And then his brain zeroed in from sheer sympathy for her loss, to the exact words she had said. 

_ Her parents, not just lost too soon, but all because they spoke out... And when she was just a child.  _

Suddenly that was familiar, and not due to any _ returning _ memories.  

'Samar?' He quickly spoke up again. Samar glanced back at him, her brow furrowing curiously. 'How old are you, exactly?'   
'Thirty eight,' she said, 'thirty nine in May... Why?' Aram's heart felt like it skipped a beat and he turned, scuttling hurriedly across the living room towards his desk.' Samar's brow furrowed further still, watching him go.    
'Aram?'   
'So...' Aram cautiously went on, rifling through the drawer for the file he had shoved in there weeks earlier and for the most part, forgotten ever since... Until now.  'In 1992, you would have been-'  
'-Twelve...' The uneasiness was sharp in Samar's voice as she finished the sentence for him. Aram pulled the file from the drawer, turning on the spot to face her from across the room and clutching it close for a second as if still debating with himself what to do with it. He couldn't believe he hadn't made the connection earlier. It seemed  _ so  _ obvious now but then again, everything he had written in his journal about Samar so far had been focused on their relationship in the more recent past, not her life before that.  

Samar studied the tension in his shoulders, and in the worried lines crinkling his eyes. Her gaze dropped to the file in his hands, wondering and even in part  _ dreading _ what it might be.    
'Aram?' She asked again, slower and wary this time.    
'Um...' Aram shuffled on his feet for a second, then darted back towards her, cautiously pushing the file into her hands; 'is this-'   
'-My parents' case,' Samar breathed, staring stunned at that first page just past the cover, 'where did you get this?'  
'It arrived in the mail a few weeks ago,' he quickly tried to explain, 'I didn't know what it was or who sent it.' Samar turned the page, and then the next one, and then the next one. The anger began to bubble up in her stomach. 

'You had the name of the man who killed my parents,' she breathed. Her voice was dangerously quiet now, piercing the air with every word, 'and then you  _ kept  _ it to yourself?' The frustration grew louder in her voice, and Aram winced again '-for weeks?'   
'I didn't know-' he quickly tried to explain, but Samar cut him off.   
'-Why didn't you  _ ask?' _ She snapped. 'On what  _ planet _ did it make sense not to say something to me when you got this? Even if you didn't know it was my family, why would you hide something like this?'  
'I wasn't hiding it, I just...' Aram trailed off, gaping at the words he couldn't figure out how to put together.  

Already the guilt was churning in his gut. 

If he had suspected for even a  _ second _ that the case was personal to her, he never would have put the file away in the drawer. 

'This is...' Samar shook her head, flicking through those pages in sheer, overwhelming disbelief; '...More information than I've ever been able to get hold of before.'   
'Was I looking into it before the accident?'   
'You must have been... But if you were, you didn't say anything about it then.' She reached the last page and instantly froze; 'that's him.' Warily, Aram glanced past her fingers, spotting that slim CIA profile with the shot of a shadowy face that had left him feeling ill at ease when he had first seen it weeks earlier.   
'The man who killed your parents?' He asked quietly.  
'I'll never forget that face.' The breath caught in Samar's throat and she suddenly pushed past him, ducking out of the room with the file still clutched tightly in hand; 'excuse me.' The memory flashed before her eyes; the overwhelming fear that had taken over, leaving her shaking when the man had slipped past her without even stopping her a second after firing those shots. The edge of his arm had brushed against her own as she had re-entered her childhood home, fast and soft but more than enough to leave an imprint on her brain that would never stop haunting her. That memory, that split second in which her childhood innocence had been shattered and her world changed forever, when she had gone from happily playing in the garden to finding her parents bloodied on the living room floor that she had been dancing on only an hour earlier... It was all consuming.  

Aram paused, watching her go rather than follow her right away. It felt like his heart was sinking inside and he cursed himself, wondering how he could possibly have been so dense.  

Finally, and taking a breath, he moved down the hallway after her. 

He paused in the bedroom doorway, brow furrowed in concern as he gazed in. Samar sat quietly on the edge of the bed, feet pulled off the floorboards, curled instead into the dangling edge of the duvet so that her chin could rest atop her knees and her arms could wrap around her shins. She held the file there, just staring at each page in turn. Still, she was a little shaken, but the shock of the revelation had already worn off. Now, she was simply caught off guard, with what felt like a hundred and one questions spiralling in her brain, wondering where the file had come from, who had compiled it, and how long all that information had been sitting in some intelligence agency's pile of dusty boxes while she had been desperately wishing for even just a fraction of it.  

'Samar?' She blinked in response to his quiet voice, but didn't look up.    
'This is everything.' Samar's voice was barely audible. 'The concrete evidence that my parents were assassinated by the government... The name of the man who did it... It's everything short of where he is now.' 

Aram paused for a second longer before taking the few steps in and lowering himself onto the edge of the bed beside her. For a moment Samar turned her head sideways, eyeing him with a dangerously neutral expression just long enough for Aram to worry that she was about to inflict some kind of pain... But she didn't. Her gaze dropped back to the file in front of her and she let out another disbelieving sigh. Ever so gingerly, Aram wrapped an arm around her, resting a reassuring hand against the small of her back.  

'I could probably find that for you,' he offered.    
'For what? I can't arrest him, I don’t have the jurisdiction. It took me years to let go, when all I wanted was to see him scared like he made me scared as a child... To make him bleed like he made my parents bleed.' Samar let out another sigh; the anger quickly fading and being steadily replaced by a grief deep inside that made her feel hollow; 'I can't go back down that path now,' she murmured, 'but now I have this... I can't just put it in a drawer and forget about it.' She stared back at him again, holding his gaze with a fierce determination in her eyes. 'This is the man who murdered my  _ parents, _ Aram.'   
'I'm sorry... I shouldn't have brought it up-'   
'-No.' Samar quickly shook her head. 'If you'd hidden it any longer, I would have been even more upset.' Aram bit his lip; she wasn't wrong, and what was worse was that now they were stuck. The information couldn't have been kept from her but now that she had it, she was taunted by the knowledge that she couldn't do anything with it either. All it could do was sit there in that file, staring back at her with justice for her parents' deaths still just out of reach.    
'Then I shouldn't have looked into it in the first place,' Aram lamented.   
'I'm sure you had a reason at the time,' Samar murmured back. She tilted her head to rest it against his shoulder. Somehow, as she sank into his side, Aram found himself tightening his arm protectively around her and resting his own head atop hers as he muttered;    
'I just wish I could remember what it was.' 

/*/*/*/* 

Across the street, a camera pointed through the windows of a dark, empty apartment, watched on. A figure paced in the shadows as he stared at the feed of the living room on a tablet in his hand, pausing suddenly at the tiny glimpse of the manila folder passing hands. 

_ There it was... Almost within reach. _

The figure pushed the button on the side of the tablet, fading away its faint blue light and plunging the rest of the room into darkness once more. The tablet slipped into the side of a duffel bag, just as the cool metal of a gun slipped out instead. 

It was time to move.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaand there's the cliffhanger I warned about on tumblr! Next up, 'Dangerous Gamble'.
> 
> Please, please comment if you can. This fic seems to be getting more hits and kudos per chapter than my previous fics, but considerably less in the way of comments, and it's a little disheartening. I'd really love to know everyone's thoughts, so please don't feel the need to be shy! My ask box on tumblr is also always open, with anon asks currently abled. :)


	10. Dangerous Gamble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Saturday, April 6, 2019. 
> 
> Here we go, following straight on from the end of the last chapter.
> 
> And in case this chapter gets a bit confusing, I put together a quick (read: disproportionate and wildly not to scale) floor plan of Samar and Aram's apartment. It's in the notes at the end. :)
> 
> Enjoy!

**_SATURDAY MORNING..._ **

All air of frustration from earlier that night was absent in their slumber. Tormented by the flashing images of her parents' bodies and their killer brushing past her, Samar clung to Aram, curled as close as humanly possible into his side with her face pushed against his shoulder and her eyes squeezed tightly shut –anything at all that her sleeping subconscious could do in the attempt to block out the demons in her dreams. Aram's arm wrapped tightly around her kept her close; the attempt of his own subconscious to protect her from those very demons every time that she tossed, turned, or muttered miserably in her sleep... Not that any of it really helped.  

A creak sounded from down the hall; the sort of creak that would hardly exist at all in the ears of those awake and surrounded by the hustle and bustle of daylight movements, but that echoed boundlessly through the stone cold silence of the apartment when the bright numbers on the alarm clock read 2:17am. 

Samar began to stir. At first the soft footsteps padding down the hall further and further into the apartment didn't register in her brain... But then they took  _ just _ the wrong step. The creaky floorboard halfway down the hallway sounded even louder than the door and Samar jumped, her eyes immediately snapping wide open.  

There was someone in the apartment. 

Aram's eyes flickered in response to Samar quickly springing off his chest and pushing his arm out of the way. He sat up, turning his head and blinking rapidly in the attempt to wake up as he spotted her slowly, quietly slipping her service weapon from the top drawer of the nightstand. Everything about the way Samar moved was different when she was alert; careful and calculating, watching the shadows slipping past the half ajar doorway, and listening intently to the faint sounds of movement in the living room, like an elegant lioness stalking her prey.  

'What's going on?' He whispered, though the urgency was clear in his voice.  
'Ssshh,' Samar softly hissed back, 'there's someone here.' She crept across the room, weapon drawn and steady in her hand, but for the moment still pointed towards the floor. Aram scrambled out from amongst the bedcovers, quickly following as Samar with one hand gestured for him to stay behind her.  

That shadow slipped past the door again. 

Samar waited a split second before stepping out into the hall. Careful step after careful step, she began to move down the hall. The bedroom door was at one end at to the left, with the front door at the other end still left open by the intruder. Slowly but surely, she moved towards the opening halfway down –the one to the living room. Samar poked her head around, Aram close on her heels. Those few and soft sounds of footsteps had fallen silent. Samar stepped further into the living room, warily glancing around. 

There was no-one there. 

She knew there was someone in the apartment, lurking, and so did Aram... But whoever it was, was nowhere to be seen.  

_ Not in the living room, not in the kitchen, not in the hallway or bedroom...  _

It was too quiet. Aram's anxiously shuffling feet had stopped behind her.  

Samar's eyes widened in alarm. She swivelled instantly on the spot, turning back to face the entryway behind her that marked the gap between the hall and living room.  

Aram was silent, his eyes swimming with fear. The cool metal of the gun was pressed, hard, against his temple, the man holding it standing behind him and slowly pulling him backwards.  

He had slipped past them, across the hall and into the bathroom just before Samar had led the way out of the bedroom, then snuck up on them from behind... And now his path back to the front door was unobstructed.  

Aram felt like he was about to throw up. The weapon pointed to his head was one thing but standing there barefoot and in his pajama bottoms somehow made him feel even more vulnerable. The intruder's other arm was wrapped around his neck, ensuring that he couldn't try to fight back even if he wanted to, and Aram could feel that hot breath beating heavy against the back of his neck. The man was so close behind him, peeking out from just behind his ear. Aram was his shield, and he wasn't about to let go in a hurry.  

'Drop your weapon,' the man ordered. His voice was quiet, dangerous –and not in the same way that Samar's had been earlier in the night. It was venomous and threatening more than it was angry. There was not a glimmer of recognition in his dark eyes; he looked straight back at her, and Samar knew he had no idea who she was.  

But the same could not be said for herself. She stared back at that man, still hidden in part by the shadows of darkness, but she knew exactly who he was. She knew that face, and his voice sent a shudder through her soul. He was a memory that had haunted her nearly as long as she could remember... He was a man that she would never forget, even if she wanted to. 

He was the man who had murdered her parents.  

He was older now, with grey hairs poking through and faint wrinkles beginning to etch their way across his forehead, but still... It was him.  

She wasn't sure if Aram knew who he was; he would have only had a quick glimpse of the man's face before he was snatched in a whirl of speed, and he wasn't haunted by the memory of it as she was either... But it wouldn't have been hard for him to guess.  

'Drop your weapon,' the man repeated, louder this time, 'all I want is the file.' Aram squirmed in his grasp, but the intruder kept that gun pressed hard against him no matter which way he moved. His eyes met Samar's; both of them knew exactly what file he was talking about, but how on earth he knew they had it was a mystery. Samar's hand tightened around her own weapon; she didn't have a shot, and they all knew it. Her parents' killer was lurking so deep in the shadows of the entryway and keeping Aram so close in front of him, that it wasn't likely to be him who was hit if she fired. Every time she stepped forwards, he pulled Aram another step back, closer and closer to the front door where he could make his exit, and she had no doubt that he would keep a hold of Aram for as long as it took to escape to safety.  

'I'll shoot him.' Still, that threatening voice made her stomach rock.  
'I hope you have lightning fast reflexes,' Samar growled back. She steadied herself, forcing a certain calm into her voice that didn't at all match how she felt; 'because if you shoot him... If you even  _ touch _ him for a second longer, I'm going to shoot you.' She shifted her gaze back to Aram's, both of them taking all of a nanosecond to silently agree; they didn't want to hand over the file. They didn't yet know where it came from, and though Samar had read it over and over enough times already to memorise nearly every last word, neither of them knew if there was any other copy... Though they doubted it. That file was evidence she had been hunting down for decades. She wasn't about to hand it over to the one man who only wanted it to make it disappear forever.  

And yet, she still didn't have a shot.  

She couldn't put her weapon down. If she did, it would be anyone's guess what the intruder would do next... But at the same time, if she didn't, it was Aram's life at risk.  

She had already lost her parents. She wasn't about to lose Aram too.  

Samar shifted her gaze back to those eyes that somehow seemed even colder than when she had first seen them as a child. He was daring her to try something, just as she was daring him.  

Samar decided to take that gamble.  

She took one more step forward. The man pulled Aram one step further back towards the door, but still he didn't fire. That confirmed exactly what Samar suspected; he wanted the file more than anything else. Taking Aram was simply leverage now that he hadn't been able to slip past them as they slept... And for every step he took closer to the door, closer to his escape, he was another step further from the file that was now hidden in her nightstand drawer.  

Samar took another step.  

So too did her partner in the unspoken Mexican standoff.  

_ Interesting. _ He wanted the file, but he was weighing up the options just as she was. He knew that she would shoot if he did, and he didn't want to die, and he knew that if he shot at her instead, it would give Aram the opening to knock his hand away. Samar's gut churned again; that only left two options. 

'If you let him go, you can leave,' she suggested. Neither weapon shook with even a fraction of hesitation at the idea. Just behind Aram's ear, Samar could see the man's lip curl into a thin smirk.  
'I think not,' he replied, still moving slowly back towards the door. 'I think I'll take him with me instead.' He pulled Aram steadily backwards. Down the hall, through the door, out of the building and onto the street, for every step he took, Samar took one in kind, keeping her weapon trained on him just as his was trained on her... While Aram remained the human shield caught between them the entire way along. He dragged Aram across the street, shoving him into the back of a van. 

The moment Aram was out of his grasp, Samar broke into a sprint; firing once, twice, three times as the man whirled around the van, shielding himself with the metal and leaping into through the passenger's door on the opposite side. One bullet clipped his shoulder, the spray of blood instantly splattering across the peeling, grey paintwork, but he was faster than she was. The van was ready to go and the man put his foot down, pulling away from the curb with Aram still locked in the back. Samar kept sprinting, chasing the van moving further and further away until the bullets ran out and the van disappeared from view.  

She bent over, breathing heavily as the gun in her hand fell to her side. In the entire time, not once had it registered in her brain that she was only in her sleep shorts and Aram's old shirt that did little to armour her slim frame against the cool of the early hours, but that was far from the priority.  

Her eyes stung as she turned, trying to blink her tear ducts back into submission. Having not expected to leave the apartment when they awoke to the sound of an intruder, she didn't even have her keys or her phone with her either. Samar took a breath, slowly trying to ease her heart rate as she began the slow walk through silence and pitch black darkness back to their apartment, but failing dismally.  

The anger was bubbling back up in her gut. Her teeth gritted together in fierce determination more and more with every step.  

Aram was gone.  

...And she wasn't going to stop until she found him.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, the return of an OC in 'Scorpions and Stings'. Bonus points of you can guess which one :D
> 
>  
> 
> [](https://www.flickr.com/gp/152300685@N03/e9BQ16)  
> 


	11. Scorpions and Stings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Saturday, April 6, 2019.
> 
> Here we go, following straight on from the last one!

**_SATURDAY..._ **

'You said he wanted the file, right?' Ressler's voice did little to break through the voice in Samar's head, the voice that echoed like the muffled reverberations of words through water-logged ears, blurring together the voice of the man who had violated her home and her own doubts about how any of it happened at all. The words echoed every step of her anxious pacing back and forth across the war room beside Aram's desk, which had followed the very same steps in her living room.  

The team had mobilised as soon as she had managed to race home and breathlessly call it in. It mattered little that it was only just after four in the morning by the time they arrived, or that they were all well past their first coffees of the day by the time they reached the Post Office.  

Aram was one of their own. 

Now, the war room was a hive of activity. Extra agents had been called in, techs were running searches; Cooper had pulled no punches in trying to make sure they had everything they needed to bring Aram home as soon as possible.  

'So why not give it to him now, if he wants to trade?' Samar glanced up at the next question Ressler was directing at her, finally meeting the expectant gazes of everyone else in the room around her. They all fell quiet; she was tired and emotional and yet, she wanted to be out there, racing around in the field and kicking down doors. She was too angry at what had happened, too impatient to bring Aram home; she didn't want to be standing around in the war room stuck in the early, team briefing stage of the case... But until they figured out where he was, there simply was nowhere for her to charge into.    
'He was after the file to try and destroy what I would guess is the only copy, the only evidence of what he had done,' Samar slowly began. 'If we give it to him now-' her voice grew, stronger and louder with every word '-he'll know that we've made a copy.' She shook her head as she thought back to the standoff in her living room; 'when he realised he couldn't get the file, he knew he had no way out and so he took Aram instead as leverage until he figures out what to do next. He'll be reckless now.'  

'Ok,' Cooper's steadying, gravelly voice chimed in; 'start from the beginning.' Samar let out a slow, deep sigh. Her fingertips, holding the file protectively to her chest, grasped at the edges even tighter. Everything contained within felt as if it were now permanently etched in her brain.  
'They call him... The Scorpion.' 

Just like his namesake, The Scorpion was known for his ruthlessness. He didn't just kill –as skilled as he was at that- but rather, he paralysed his victims first. His weapon of choice was fear, taking the time if he could, to taunt them and make them tremble before killing them instead of doing it quickly... And then when he finally did, it was hard, fast, and brutal. It was messy, never clean, so as to further instil that same fear in those who were left behind to find the bodies. He had no qualms about destroying families, tearing apart couples, or leaving children alone to fend for themselves as he had done to Samar and Shahin. Once his mission was complete he vanished into thin air, leaving them to pick up the pieces without once looking back. He was the heartless master of death whose soul, thick with as much venom as the poisonous bullets that had originally earned him the fame and attention of his subsequent government employer, knew no bounds of evil.  

Samar had no doubt that The Scorpion would show Aram no mercy, but she also knew he wasn't the real target. They had to find him fast but at the very least, so long as The Scorpion thought of Aram as a bargaining chip, he would keep him alive.  

The question was simply what else he would do to Aram in the meantime.  

/*/*/*/* 

Aram had no idea where he was. He had lost count of all the turns the van had made in the drive away from the apartment, not to mention how many minutes had passed between each one. There had been a pause when the van had stopped, a rustle of movement outside... And then those back doors had opened, the sudden glaring sunlight blinding him as powerful arms had yanked him off the floor and pulled a rancid bag over his head that left something powdery in his hair. His first attempt to squirm his way out of that grasp had quickly resulted in a punch to his gut that left him instantly doubled over in pain, and after that... Aram's captor had dragged him along on his knees until he stopped fighting back. 

First, the ground had been soft but scratchy; dirt, perhaps, or even sand. The air around him had been relatively quiet, with faint traffic noises in the distance, and the morning sunlight had warmed his skin. Then, the ground had hardened to something man-made but left unfinished, grazing his legs as the ankles of his pajama bottoms gathered around his knees until Aram felt the warmth not of sunlight, but of his own blood beginning to seep through, leaving a flecked trail behind him. The faint sounds of traffic had vanished, replaced by an eerie silence. He had gone from outside to inside, the building growing colder the further in he was dragged... Until at last, it was a different sort of cool that Aram could feel against his legs. Smooth, or at least in patches. The tight grasp around his arms had let go, his upper body had slammed flat against the floor, and then Aram's ears had echoed with the thud of door slamming shut behind him.  

Warily, and gasping in pain, he pulled the bag off his head and glanced around.  

He was in a small bathroom, the sort that belonged in office spaces, but that was only half built. The tiling was patchy, with one corner of the room's floor left incomplete. The doors to the cubicles remained unattached, lying instead in a pile on the floor at the other end of the room, while the faucets, though attached to the sink, let out no water no matter many times Aram turned them.  

He rose to his feet, grimacing at the dull pain still lingering in his abdomen and the long grazes streaked down both of his lower legs, and instinctively reached for the door handle. It was no surprise that it was locked, nor that the tiny bathroom windows along the top edge of one wall weren't able to be opened either -their sole purpose was providing the room with light whilst still maintaining privacy, and nothing more. Aside from cracked tiles, piles of plasterboard, and plumbing fixtures that apparently didn't function, there was nothing else to look at. 

More importantly, there was nothing else that could help him escape either.  

Aram shifted his gaze to the bag he had pulled from his head; the label was faded and smudged from having been left out in the elements for an extended period of time, but enough remained legible to know that it once held cement powder. 

Between that and the glaring absence of any construction noises around him, Aram could conclude one thing; wherever he was, the building he was trapped in was one abandoned long before it was finished.  

/*/*/*/* 

Samar strode through the park, head down and every step purposeful. The playground was full of families enjoying Saturday afternoon picnics while their children ran and played on the playground, but Samar paid them little attention. The joggers moving past her in steady streams in both directions barely registered either. She had tunnel vision, focused on pushing through the crowd of people too engrossed in their own joys to even notice her own lack of it for a second, and reaching the end of the walkway.  

Taking a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure nobody was following her, Samar lowered herself onto one of the benches at the far end. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket, tapping and scrolling away absentmindedly at a news app, though the headlines were far from where her mind was wandering.  

'How is he?' A familiar voice echoed in her ear from the bench behind her own. Samar forced herself not to even blink in affectionate recognition of the tall, sandy haired man sitting there, thumbing through headlines of his own –though his came in the form of a newspaper. Worried lines creased his brow, as they often had from the moment Samar had called him months earlier to say Aram had been knocked off his bicycle.    
'Angus, those names that you and Aram use when you share information that you're not supposed to be sharing, so you don't get caught-' Samar's voice was quiet so as not to rouse the attention of anybody else around, but the urgency in her tone was all too clear '-what name were you using before the accident?' There was a pause where Aram's college roommate didn't respond, and Samar let out a deep breath, her eyes falling softly closed for a moment. Only that morning, whilst waiting for the team to arrive at her apartment and trying to figure out what on earth was going on, had she retraced her and Aram's steps through the living room from their original conversation before going to bed the night before. She had pulled open his desk drawer, the very one in which the file had been hidden away for so many weeks, and there she had found that post-it note that had originally been tucked inside the cover; 

_ 'This is all I could find. I hope it helps. -Greg.' _

She had wondered where the file had come from, but Aram hadn't said. She also didn't recognise the name Greg any more than he would have when he had first received it either -the two of them had only started using the fake names after Garrick's Post Office intrusion, and they changed them regularly after that- but she knew enough to suspect who it could have been. Angus and Aram thought of each other as brothers; first college roommates, then recruited to the NSA together where they had been allocated a single, shared office. They regularly shared puzzles, debated techniques, and geeked out over just about everything together. Half the time –and especially when they were excited- Samar didn't understand a word of what they were talking about, but she understood enough to know one thing; there was nobody more likely than Angus for Aram to turn to if he had been tangled up in something tech.  

Behind her, Samar heard Angus suck in the air between his teeth as he winced before finally replying;    
'Greg.' That confirmed it. Samar stifled the urge to shake her head in wistful frustration.  
'Where did you find the file on my parents' deaths?' Her tone was sharper this time, stung with the potential of betrayal in the knowledge that now it was not just Aram, but both of them that had been looking into it behind her back.    
'I didn't find it,' Angus quickly murmured back. 'Aram and I, we  _ assembled _ it together. He said it was bugging you that you only had pieces of information about what happened to your parents. We looked everywhere for months, finding all the different pieces of information in different agencies' databases and piecing them together like a puzzle until we had a complete picture of what happened.' He paused for a moment, his voice softening when he finally spoke again; 'he wanted to surprise you with it... Why?' 

A breath caught in Samar's throat. It took everything she had not to turn in her seat and meet the gaze of the friend sitting on the bench behind her own.  

'The Scorpion took him,' she whispered, 'whatever the two of you did, he found out. He was watching us... He broke in to steal the file and when we woke up and interrupted him, he took Aram instead-' Samar glanced around again, still wary of anyone watching or listening in '-if you can figure out how he knew what you were doing, it might help find where he's keeping Aram.' Behind her, Angus nodded his earnest agreement.   
'I'm on it,' he said softly, 'and Samar?' He paused for a split second, reaching through the tiny gaps between the bench seats and the backrests to quickly squeeze her hand; 'I'm sorry.'  
'I know.' Slowly but surely her hand slipped from his, and Samar rose once again to her feet. She paused at the end of the bench a second longer, carefully panning her gaze back across the park. She rounded the bench, her dark eyes only catching his oft-twinkling greens for barely a nanosecond as she brushed past him; 'thanks.' 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Points to you if you guessed that it'd be Angus who appears in this chapter! He may or may not come back, I haven't decided yet, though I'm leaning towards the notion that he probably will. :P
> 
> Next up, 'Powerless'.


	12. Powerless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Sunday, April 7, 2019.

**_SUNDAY..._ **

Bare skin, covered solely by torn, thin, and now even slightly bloodied pajama bottoms, did little to guard against the cold of the tiled floor where Aram lay crumpled. Already, he had lost count of how long he had been trapped in the tiny, sawdusty bathroom; the limited light streaming in through the even tinier frosted window above his head told him that the day of his arrival had faded slowly into the next, but anything more precise than that was impossible to tell. In that time, Aram had managed to shuffle around the small space, unpiling those thin cubicle doors in the corner and spreading them across floor to take the edge off the chill, but that hadn't done much to help either. The two doors, even when placed side by side, weren't enough for his tall frame. Either his feet dangled off the end, or he rolled off the sides, still ending up on the tiles regardless.

After a while, Aram hadn't been able to keep his eyes open any longer, but between the cold tiles and the deathly silence outside the room that left him wondering when -or _if-_ The Scorpion would return, his sleep was not a restful one.  

His unconscious mind was flooded with images he couldn't quite place; watching on in horror from the back of a car as Samar, in a cherry red pantsuit, was shoved in the back of a van just as he had been the day before. Next, holding her close as they swayed back and forth in the dusky light of their living room to jazz music blaring over film credits scrolling along their television screen. Alternating every now and then, the images flashed scenes that made his stomach flip anxious somersaults, interspersed with others that washed over him with rolling waves of adoration. All together they conflated in his brain, forming a story of a jumbled, nonsensical mess, undoubtedly spurred by the stressful whirl of the day before.  

Aram tossed and turned restlessly on the uncomfortable combination of doors and tiles. His eyes remained squeezed tightly shut, but even in his sleep he couldn't help but flinch and fret miserably under his breath with each and every upsetting image flashing before his eyes.  

The sound of heavy footsteps pounding towards the door didn't manage to jerk Aram back to the realm of consciousness. The door being wrenched open made his eyes suddenly snap open but it was when, all in a frenzy, The Scorpion yanked him off the ground by one arm and bundled him up against the wall that Aram's heart truly began to race. There was a pipe running down the wall that dug painfully into his back but now, wide awake, Aram's focus was on the furious expression on The Scorpion's face and the hot, putrid air being breathed straight back into his own.  

'Why were you looking into me?' The older man growled. Aram squirmed in his grasp, but the Scorpion's tight, one-handed chokehold kept him firmly in place.    
'I don't know,' Aram hurriedly croaked in response, 'I-I don't remember.'  
_'Why_ not?' Dark, questioning eyes bore into his skull. Unlike the warmth he always saw in Samar's eyes, The Scorpion's felt nothing but cruel and callous. Aram's heart rate quickened, his breathing not far behind as he struggled to think up an answer that wouldn't add to the killer's rage. Still, it ached where he had been punched in the gut the morning before, and that had only been a single strike. He didn't need to find out how painful any further hits could be.    
'I don't know, I swear,' he repeated. 'I... I was knocked off my bike three months ago. I hit my head. I don't remember what I was doing before that.' Aram paused in his breathless explanation, watching the way that the anger ever so slightly faded from The Scorpion's face in favour of curious contemplation as if somehow, he already knew. 'But uh, I can guess,' Aram quickly added. The hand around his throat eased a little more, and Aram took that as a nod to continue; 'my girlfriend's parents were murdered when she was young. I was probably looking into it for her. That file, the one with your name, that was what I found.'

 _That_ caught The Scorpion's attention. His eyes flickered, narrowing as if recalling a memory.

'Your girlfriend...' He began again. This time it was quiet, dangerous in concern of his own rather than angry; 'the woman with the gun. Who is she?'

Aram's brow furrowed in confusion; it hadn't occurred to him that in all the years since Samar's parents were murdered in 1992, she would have changed so much that The Scorpion wouldn't have recognised her in their apartment... But even if he hadn't known who she was then, he certainly seemed to know what file they had...

...And that meant he was about to figure it all out.  

/*/*/*/*

The plates on the van came back as stolen. At half past two in the morning, there were no witnesses aside from Samar who saw Aram being shoved in the back either. They knew The Scorpion's name and face, but that led them nowhere. He had gone off the grid in his reckless improvisation since his attempt to steal the file had been thwarted, and without any way of tracking him or the van, they had no idea where to look next.  

Following the van's path on traffic surveillance cameras could only go so far. After it had dropped off the radar in a neighbourhood full of trashed and vandalised cameras, they were stuck.  

With Liz following up on a lead with Reddington, and Ressler locked in a meeting with Cooper and the higher ups who wanted to know how on earth their Strategic and Technical Technician could be kidnapped from his own home, Samar was left alone at her desk to sift through pile after pile of their failed leads, hoping to find something they might have missed.  

After yet another day of no new or helpful information, the frustration was ever increasing. It was as if, while flicking through endless pages of endless reports of searches and interviews that had all gone nowhere, her eyes were scanning back and forth, reading the same few lines over and over and over again. By now the words were permanently imprinted on her brain. Knowing that The Scorpion had Aram hidden away somewhere, but not knowing what was happening to him or how to find them and stop it, only made it worse. Samar was powerless, and she hated it.  

Her phone rang with the shrill outburst of an incoming call, and Samar jumped. She fumbled through the pile of pages for it, pulling it to her ear immediately without even pausing for a second to consider the unrecognised number flashing on the screen.    
'Samar Navabi,' the voice purred through the line. Samar froze, recognising it instantly. 'You've grown up since the last time I saw you.' She took a breath, steadying herself. That voice sent a shiver through her soul, the feeling of terror as he brushed past her as a child and the images of Aram being shoved in the back of the van instantly flashing before her eyes again, but Samar tried not to let it sound in her voice. Though, even with her forced air of calm, she couldn't help but furrow her brow in thought; The Scorpion hadn't recognised her during their standoff in the apartment but clearly, something since then had changed.  

That did everything to confirm her suspicion that he was questioning Aram, and absolutely nothing at all to ease her anxiety over the price at which those answers came.  

'What do you want?' She seethed.  
'Your boyfriend's not the only one who knows how to do research,' The Scorpion mused back. Through the line, Samar could practically hear the way his lip was curling with a smirk; 'I did some of my own. Does he know about all the things you've done? You betrayed our country even worse than your parents. They tried to speak out against our government, but you...' He trailed off, leaving the notion hanging threateningly in the air for a moment. 'You walked into the clutches of our enemy. You embraced them, killed for them. You left your own brother for dead in the hands of an American criminal.'  

Samar froze for the second time in as many minutes. She glanced around the war room in alarm as her heart felt as if it were plummeting deep into her stomach -not that it really mattered if anyone was listening, but it was an automatic instinct by now to be discreet when it came to the more questionable elements of her work life.

She rose from her seat, teeth gritted as she listened, ducking away from her desk and slipping behind one of the wide, concrete columns. Yet again, the man who had destroyed her childhood and violated her home, was a step ahead of her. How he knew about cases that nobody outside the taskforce –aside from Reddington- was supposed to know about, was beyond her, but it had that feeling of powerlessness back with a vengeance.

'I should have killed you back then, but that was my error.' The smugness seemed to rise in his voice at her silence, making the anger bubble up in Samar's gut all the more so. 'Let me fix it now. I'll spare your boyfriend if you take his place.'

It took no time at all for Samar to make that decision.  

There was nothing else she could do. She had no leads to track The Scorpion down, and the longer she couldn't find him, the further away he seemed to get. Not an ounce of hesitation shook her voice as she replied;  
'Where?'

/*/*/*/*

That pipe running down the tiled wall quickly became the next level of confinement within the tiny, half-built bathroom, with Aram waking up from one of his many fades into unconsciousness over the course of the day to find himself chained to it. It was low enough that he could still sit on the floor, but no longer could he explore that tiny room, moving cubicle doors in the attempt to find any semblance of comfort. His eyes had flickered softly closed again no matter how hard he tried to keep them open, his dreams tainted once again by emotional images triggered by the overwhelming stresses of his captivity. Between wondering when –or _if-_ he would be rescued, and the dull aches spread across his entire body from The Scorpion beating him for the hell of it after the morning's initial questioning, those flashbacks remained disorienting, and the limited sleep remained far more restless than actually effective.  

Aram began to stir, the tiny hairs on the back of his neck suddenly prickling with the feeling of being watched. His eyes squeezed tightly shut for a moment before opening properly again, and Aram jumped at the sight in front of him; The Scorpion standing there, looming over him where he sat slumped over on the floor. His captor’s arms were folded, an array of manila files –almost case-like, in fact- dangling from his fingers as a smirk slowly began to stretch wide across his face.  

'Do you know who she is?' He began. There was a calmness to his voice that was oddly unsettling. He wasn't angry as he had been earlier in the day; instead, there was a disturbing smugness that lingered in his words, as if he suddenly knew something that Aram did not. 'Who she _really_ is?' The Scorpion tossed the files from his hand so that they landed in front of Aram in a scattered mess on the floor. 'She's a traitor. She betrayed her country for Mossad,' the older man mused on. Aram's gaze couldn't help but immediately follow those pages raining down and he reached out, furrowing his brow at what appeared to be a steady stream of copies of case reports from the taskforce. 'Tell me, does she leak Mossad intelligence to the FBI the same way she leaks FBI intelligence to Mossad?' The Scorpion's smirk seemed to curl up even more so, but Aram hardly noticed. His attention was firmly set on those files; he didn't recognise the cases, but his signature was right there on bottom of every other page. The reports were real, and what was worse was that the one right on top of the pile told the unfortunate story not just of Samar leading a Mossad raid, but also hiding it from the taskforce even when it obstructed their own, overlapping investigation. Aram turned page after page, his stomach slowly sinking with each report detailing Samar's more contentious incidents; the way she was recruited to the taskforce at Reddington's request, her being temporarily fired for leaking case details to Liz on the run, her suspicious disappearance during The Scimitar case that was followed not too shortly after by his murder and lastly, the way she had handed her own brother over to Reddington.  

'The same way she leaks all of the intelligence on Reddington to his enemies?' Aram's gaze lifted slowly, fearfully to meet that of the killer still looming over him. 'Oh, I know about Reddington,' The Scorpion taunted, 'just like I know that Samar Navabi isn't who you, or anyone else thinks she is.' A breath caught in Aram's throat at that. At first glance, none of the pages reported Samar compromising their confidential informant, but if The Scorpion was correct in his observations that Samar leaked information between agencies –which, the reports seemed to say that he was- then what was to say that his other claims weren't also true?  

A sick feeling washed over Aram. For all of Samar's attempts to fill him in on the events of the last five years, she hadn't mentioned any of the events detailed on the pages in front of him, making Aram begin to wonder what else had been curiously omitted by the woman he had been slowly allowing himself to falling in love with again.

'She's a spy who sells her services to the highest bidder,' came The Scorpion's final jibe; 'she doesn't know the meaning of the word _loyalty.'_

Somewhere in the back of Aram's mind, in the limited space not overrun by exhaustion and emotional whirlwind, it clicked that he was no longer being interrogated. The questions that The Scorpion was asking weren't a quest for new information but rather, something else entirely. Aram wondered why he was still there, why he was still being beaten, and why he was now being shown all the files in front of him, when none of it seemed to serve any purpose. The Scorpion gained nothing from any of it, now that he knew Aram had no memory and no ability to give him answers.  

If anything, Aram's next concern would be that as soon as The Scorpion knew it was worthless to keep him, he would be dead shortly after and yet, there he still was... And there seemed no reason for him to see those files if he was going to be murdered soon after.  

The most obvious assumption, as Aram tried to steady himself and think rationally for a moment, was that he was being manipulated, that The Scorpion was trying to make him believe that Samar wasn't the woman she had made herself out to be over the last few weeks, but that made no sense. The files in front of him were legitimate as far as Aram could tell, so The Scorpion wasn't _lying_ to him... And there was no point in trying to turn him against Samar either, unless he was going to be released back to her for the manipulation to actually have some kind of effect.  

So, Aram had to wonder; what was the endgame?

And more importantly; what was the truth?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, unlucky Chapter 13; 'Blown Opportunities'!


	13. Blown Opportunities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Tuesday, April 9, 2019

**_TUESDAY..._ **

Samar couldn't help but let out a shiver. At just before three in the morning, in some out of the way stretch of wilderness in Rock Creek Park, even in early April there was already a certain chill to the air. It was eerily quiet; as she stood there in the tiny clearing, the only sounds were a few crickets in the distance, and her teeth chattering slightly as her breath fogged up the air before her eyes.  

The sudden creak of twigs snapping under footsteps behind her made Samar's shoulders instantly tense.  

'He said no law enforcement,' she murmured. Samar didn't even bother turning to look back at the person behind her; nobody on the taskforce had liked the idea of her going to the meet alone, but she was adamant. She was going to do whatever it took to bring Aram home, no matter how dangerous they thought it was.    
'Then it's a good thing I'm not law enforcement,' came a familiar, droll voice. Samar turned on the spot in surprise to face the person behind her. Even in the pitch black darkness of the clearing, lit only by the screen of her phone, the shadowy outline standing there in front of her was unmistakable.  

Not Ressler, not Liz, or any other agent of the Bureau...

_Reddington._

Of course it was.  

Dembe stood just off to the side as he always did, and a few others of Reddington's ragtag team of mercenaries lingered further back again, almost completely hidden amongst the dark shadows of the trees. Samar panned her gaze around the clearing, eyeballing each and every one of them until her eyes landed back on the fedora-clad felon standing just inches from her. The corners of Reddington's lips quirked up with his trademark, all-knowing smirk and he gave an ever so slight tip of his head. Just like that, his team took the few steps backwards, vanishing entirely into the darkness behind him, and Reddington himself, Dembe still at his heels, moved to follow.

Within seconds, Samar was back to standing there in the clearing, alone... Or at least, she _looked_ alone.  

She turned on the spot again, back to facing the direction from which The Scorpion was set to arrive. He would never know that she had her own band of fighters hiding in the shadows, ready to back her up in an instant if things took a sudden turn for the worse. Now, all Samar had to do was wait. Two pinpricks of bright light began to shine in the distance, signalling The Scorpion's imminent arrival, and Samar couldn't help but feel apprehensive; emotions had been running high ever since all Aram's memories of her had been essentially wiped from existence. Now he was gone, taken by the man who had brutally murdered her parents and who had taken the extra day after arranging the meet, to do who knows what to Aram before handing him back. Samar's worlds were colliding, and she was exhausted by the sheer emotional rollercoaster of it all. She had no idea what state Aram would be in when The Scorpion handed him over, nor what the sadistic killer would do to her when she took his place.  

Not only was her parents' murderer ruthless, but he was also intelligent and even worse –he was _desperate._  

The original file had every last shred of information short of where The Scorpion's life was at currently, but Angus had called back late the night before to report his findings on exactly that. Ever since leaving Samar behind to find her parents' bodies all those years ago, The Scorpion had used his position conducting covert executions to garner favour with his government employers, and earn himself all kinds of entitlements. Just the latest was as some kind of covert embassy liaison officer where the more specific details of his role were redacted even at Angus' level –but whatever it was, Angus _had_ found two crucial pieces of information; firstly, The Scorpion had gone rogue from that role shortly before Aram's accident but secondly, and despite that, he still held diplomatic immunity. At the very least, it was enough to conclude that The Scorpion had access at a high enough level to be alerted when anyone looked into old cases that he had played a part in, but that the very same access was threatened if word of his past crimes began to spread and in turn, implicate his employers.  

In short; everything The Scorpion now knew was threatened by the potential reveal of his past, and he had the absolute freedom to do anything it took to keep that very past hidden.

Slowly but surely those two pinpricks of light grew larger, then followed by the low hum of an engine. Samar stood silently, watching on as they approached, stopped, and then suddenly plunged the clearing into eerie silent darkness once more. A moment later, and the crackling of footsteps against the leaves on the ground echoed again, this time from the opposite direction. A breath caught in Samar's throat; there, now in front of her, stood Aram, and once again The Scorpion lurked close behind with one hand clasped around the back of Aram's neck, and a gun pointed against the small of his back, edging him ever so slowly forwards.  

Samar gritted her teeth, keeping a neutral expression as she studied the sight before her. Aram was still shivering in nothing more than his pajama bottoms, but they were torn and bloodied, with bruises and grazes streaking down both legs poking through. All over his torso and arms were blotchy bruises in varying hues of blue, green and purple. The largest, just off centre on his abdomen had a fist sized green patch that appeared to be from a punch to the gut, closely overlapped with a larger, more recent, purple blotch that would have been caused by something even harder.  

...And then there was the dark ring sitting heavy around Aram's left eye that probably _hadn't_ come from anything harder than a fist, but only because for that, a fist was more than hard enough.  

'You're here,' The Scorpion sneered from the other end of the clearing, 'I'm impressed. Where are all the cops?' Samar rolled her eyes.  
'You told me not to bring any cops,' she retorted.    
'Excuse me if I don't trust you to keep your word.'  
'I wasn't planning on trusting you either.' Samar tipped her head in Aram's direction; 'let him go.' Peeking out from just behind Aram's ear, The Scorpion eyed her suspiciously for a moment.    
'I'll bring him to the middle,' he observed. 'You can meet us there.' Step by step, he edged Aram ever closer, and Samar matched every slow pace. The seconds felt like an eternity. That tiny clearing, barely over a hundred feet wide, suddenly felt so much larger.  

By the time Aram was close enough to touch, Samar could have sworn she could hear the way his heart was about ready to pound its way out of his chest.  

'You ok?' She whispered to him. For a moment, it seemed as if Aram was reluctant to meet her gaze.    
'I'd say I've been better,' he murmured back. His lip twitched with the tiniest of reassuring smiles, and Samar gave a slow nod, taking it all in.  

The Scorpion held her gaze for a moment, daring Samar to make some kind of strategic move, but she didn't. She stood there, still and quiet, watching as the leathery hand released from the back of Aram's neck. In an instant, Aram couldn't help but let out the breath that he hadn't even realised he was holding; the cool metal of the weapon shoved hard against his back began to move, twisting around him until it pointed at Samar, barely inches from her chest. Still, Samar held his gaze; it wasn't yet the time to make a move. Aram took a step sideways, and then another, and then another, slowly edging away from them until he was just out of The Scorpion's reach.

Samar took a slow, calming breath. Every step, every second was a gamble.  

She couldn't move until Aram was safe.  

Just the slightest provocation would see one of the psychopath's bullets fired immediately at her or Aram.  

Aram kept moving. Samar remained standing deathly still with that weapon pointed straight at her.

And then suddenly... One hand reached out. Still with his weapon in the other hand, The Scorpion grabbed Samar's arm, pulling her along, and hard. Samar braced herself, reluctantly allowing her parent's killer to drag her along, all the while in her head she was counting down the seconds.

_3..._

Samar took another breath.

_2..._

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aram being pulled sharply sideways into the shadows of the trees.

_1..._

The bullet whizzed so close past her ear, Samar could feel the cool whoosh of air. It missed –albeit only narrowly, but that was enough. The Scorpion ducked, turning and glaring back at her in a furious rage. His grasp on her arm released in an instant, and he moved to raise his weapons again but Samar was too fast; she charged forwards, shoving him square in the chest and following it up with a flying kick to the gut. The army of mercenaries flew out of the trees behind her, each and every last one with their own weapons aimed forwards. Two more bullets missed, just as The Scorpion tumbled to the ground from her kick and he scrambled. For a split second his eyes met hers, contemplating charging back, but he quickly thought the better of it.  

'You said you didn't bring back up,' he hissed. For the first time in days, Samar's lips curled into a tiny smile.    
'No,' she replied, quirking a single, wry eyebrow, 'I said I didn't bring any cops.' She quickly ducked, missing his half-hearted attempt to get the last word in with a blow to her jaw, and instead grabbed her arm. The Scorpion's eyes flickered, glancing back and forth between the agent ready but unable to arrest him, and the steadily approaching band of gunmen all holstering their weapons ready to pile on him instead. At last, a flash of panic widened the killer's eyes and he knew he was outnumbered; he pulled his arm from hers and twisted, enough to pull Samar down and send her rolling in the hard dirt before he turned, bolting through the trees to where those two pinpricks of lights had gone dark.  

The army of thundering footsteps hurtled past Samar in the dirt, chasing after him as she caught her breath... And another set of footsteps, softer and slower this time, came to a stop behind her.  

'They won't catch him now,' she gasped, jumping back to her feet, 'not in the trees, and not once he gets back to his vehicle.'  
'But they did keep you from his clutches,' came Reddington's voice in response; 'we'll catch him another day but for now, Elizabeth can't complain for once that I haven't fulfilled her request.'  

Samar furrowed her brow with a hint of annoyance. Of course; when she had been at odds with the rest of the taskforce about going to the meet alone, Liz had asked Reddington to back her up instead... And though it had ensured her safety, it had cost her the opportunity to face off with the man she had been after for so long.  

There was a rustle in the trees behind them that caught their attention, drawing Samar away from that particular train of thought. She, Reddington and Dembe all turned, glancing back to see Aram poking his way back into the clearing now that all else had fallen quiet. Reddington broke into a frown as he came closer, spotting the colourful array of bruises, before turning his gaze back to Samar once more;    
'And I'd advise taking Aram to the hospital for some x-rays.'

/*/*/*/*

By the time Samar was allowed out of the waiting room and into the Emergency Room bay where Aram was being checked over, he was sitting up at the end of the bed. His torn pajama bottoms had been replaced by a set of pale blue, hospital-issue button down pajamas, his cuts and grazes had been cleaned and dressed where necessary, and if not for the dark bruise around his left eye, nobody would have guessed from looking at him that he had just been held hostage and beaten for an approximate long weekend.  

Samar paused at the small gap in the curtain, gazing in. She broke into a soft smile as Aram looked up; The Scorpion might have escaped their clutches but now at least, they were both safe from his... And though she was still annoyed at her opportunity to kill him being blown, she couldn't deny she was glad to know that Aram was safe.   

'Hey,' she softly greeted him, 'how are you feeling?' Aram shuffled uncomfortably where he sat on the edge of the bed, still not quite able to meet her eye. Everything that The Scorpion had told him about Samar was still echoing in the back of his brain, leaving him unsettled. Not all of the claims had been proven by the files and surveillance photos that had been thrown in front of him –again and again, every few hours after the first instance- but more than enough had been legitimate for the seeds of doubt to be sowed somewhere deep inside... And after that, and the emotional overhaul of being beaten and then forced to stay awake for hours on end, those seeds of doubt had grown and bloomed far more so than what would have been rational.  

Aram didn't _want_ to believe any of it, but there was too much proven true for him not to wonder. The notion that Samar was lying to him, that the woman he had been trusting for months to lead him back to the truth after five years had been wiped from his memory was actually hiding things from him... Aram couldn't get it out of his head.  

To him, she wasn't the woman he had known for five years who he trusted with his life and then some. She was the stranger who had brought him home from the hospital three months ago, and that he had trusted when she had spun the tale of their romance in the face of his confusion. She was the woman he had allowed himself to start falling in love with, but now all Aram felt was betrayal sinking deep down in his gut.

He didn't know what to believe. He knew what he _wanted_ to believe, but there were too many recognisable signatures on recognisable reports, and too many other holes in his memory for that.  

'Sore,' Aram mumbled, 'but I'll live.' Samar took the few steps from the curtain towards him, slowly lowering herself onto the edge of the bed beside him. He was battered and bruised but according to the doctors, there was no further damage. She shifted her hand across to his leg, resting her soft fingertips on his and giving them a gentle squeeze. Aram flinched, instantly pulling his hand from hers, and making her stare back at him in surprise.  

There was the tiniest fraction of hurt that stung in Samar's eyes, the bare minimum that she would let show, but she tried to blink it away.  

'Sorry,' Aram spoke again, barely audible this time. He winced, shuffling uneasily in his seat again. It added slightly more of a gap between them, though he hoped she wouldn't notice. Samar forced herself to shake it off; after the last few days and all that had happened to Aram, it would make sense that he would be jumpy, especially with unexpected touches. Surely, it had nothing to do with her, and after a few days passed, the shock wore off, and they talked about what happened, he would be fine.

 _Though..._ Samar furrowed her brow as she watched him. There was something unsettling about the way Aram's shoulders were tensed and the way he still wouldn't meet her eye.  

Her gut began to churn again. She had thought they had made enough progress to be past that part.  

...Perhaps The Scorpion had done even worse to Aram than what she had first thought.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, The Scorpion's manipulation begins to rear it ugly head, in 'Enough'.
> 
> Please don't forget to comment if you can! The last couple of chapters haven't had any comments at all here on ao3, and feedback is my writer fuel! :)


	14. Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Tuesday-Wednesday, April 9-10, 2019

**_TUESDAY NIGHT..._ **

For the second time in three months, Samar quietly led a tired, on edge Aram back home from the Emergency Room. Aram was just as quiet, still trying to organise his thoughts and memories. Still he was trying to find some sense of reason in everything The Scorpion had told him. It didn't make sense to him that the age-wearied assassin would have told him any of the things that he did –after all, he hardly seemed to gain anything from it- and yet, there was absolutely no mistaking the files Aram had seen.  

At the very least, it occurred to him that The Scorpion was far from a good guy and unlike him, Samar didn't seem the sort to kidnap and viciously beat people for the hell of it... By extension, surely, that made Samar's words more trustworthy than those of her parents' killer.  

So, perhaps he  _ was _ being manipulated... But  _ why? _

And why had Samar seemed to hide those cases rather than telling him first? Even if  _ he _ was being manipulated, the fact that she had kept things hidden was something Aram couldn't wrap his head around. 

The questions ran endless circles around and around in his brain like a painful, broken record.  

Wandering along behind her, deep in thought, Aram found himself in the bedroom, pulling that hospital issued shirt over his head in favour of something more comfortable. Across the room, and staring aimlessly into the laundry pile on the armchair beside the wardrobe, Samar was stripping off her heavy coat and quickly moving onwards to her boots.  

'What haven't you told me?' Aram suddenly broke the silence between them   
'Hmm?' He was watching her, but Samar's glance back to him was fleeting, as if she was so deep in her own thoughts that she had barely even heard the question.    
'While The Scorpion was beating me...' He trailed off for a second, but just those first six words caught Samar's attention. She turned on the spot, staring back at him with her socks now dangling forgotten from her fingertips. 'He showed me old case files and surveillance photos-' instantly, Samar winced '-cases where you shared Mossad and FBI intel back and forth when you weren't supposed to, so that one could fly under the radar of the other.' Aram held her gaze as he spoke; her heart was already starting to plummet into her stomach, and it showed on her face. 'Cases you worked for Mossad-'   
'-Aram-' Samar quickly tried to interject, but Aram kept going.   
'-Samar, you  _ threw _ a man out of a twelfth storey window.' Aram's words grew louder and more agitated the longer he went on, and Samar let out a sigh.  
'It's  _ not _ that simple,' she stressed. She had known something was bothering him –Aram had been far too jumpy at the hospital for that not to be the case- but this caught her off guard.  _ 'This _ is exactly why I hadn't said anything yet,' Samar snapped, then instantly recoiled; the words had come out far more frustrated than intended. She took a breath, steadying herself before starting again; 'while your memory is still...' Samar shook her head, unable to pinpoint the word she was after.  _ Fragile _ didn't seem right, not if she didn't want to accidentally antagonise Aram even further; 'it's hard to get your head around it when the story you have is one sided and full of holes.'  

By now the socks had dropped unceremoniously from her fingers and landed at the foot of the chair, while Aram's hospital shirt was tossed to the ground in annoyance. 

'So then tell me now,' he scoffed, 'what other side of the story could there possibly be to you-' Aram shook his head, letting out a soft growl under his breath '-running around  _ murdering _ people, and then hiding it from the team?' He was all worked up now, and far beyond being reasoned with. Samar let out another sigh; she had thought they were past this stage of his gaps in memory pushing him to frustrated outbursts but then again, if The Scorpion had been meddling with what was indeed a certain element of fragility in Aram's brain...  

'Maybe we should save this conversation for-' she tried to coax him.  
'-When?' Aram fumed over her. 'Another time that you can put it off again? How am I supposed to piece together the last five years when I can't trust a single word you say now?' Samar opened her mouth to respond, but no words found their way out. Aram brushed past her, storming into the bathroom in a huff and leaving her standing there alone.  

All she could do was watch him go. A guilty feeling settled itself deep in her gut; she had known it would be a bad idea to omit certain elements of the past until Aram was better able to handle them, and yet she had done it anyway... And now she had no idea what to say. 

/*/*/*/* 

Samar stared up at the ceiling, wide awake. She couldn't sleep. No matter how hard she tried, Aram's words from earlier in the evening still echoed in her brain, refusing to shut down and allow her to rest. She let out a sigh as she pushed back the bedcovers, sliding out of bed carefully so as not to wake him. Pulling her robe over her shoulders, Samar slipped quietly out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen instead.  

Water poured into a glass felt ice cold in her hands at that time of the morning, but Samar sat there at the counter, sipping it anyway.  

Now she understood why The Scorpion had kept Aram for that extra day after agreeing to meet. Even if Aram's brain was so fogged with exhaustion and confusion that he couldn't see it, Samar certainly could.  

When he couldn't take back the file or torture her directly, The Scorpion had decided to cause her pain in a different way; by taking advantage of Aram's fragile memory and systematically turning him against her.  

Samar took a breath, allowing her eyes to fall softly closed for a moment. There was only one thing she could do to beat The Scorpion at his own game, and it made her feel as if her heart was cracking in two. She pushed away the glass, leaving it sitting on the counter still half full. Creeping quietly around the apartment once more, she switched her pajamas for warmer clothes. She pulled her hair back off her face into a pony tail and then grabbed her boots, pulling those on too. In under five minutes she was dressed and reaching for the go bag she always had packed and ready to go any time that Mossad called her away at the last minute. Her shadowy form in the darkness headed back towards the living room, pausing at the counter for a moment and reaching for the pen and pad that always sat on the edge. Samar blinked, hard, trying to force her tear ducts back into submission, but one rogue droplet rolled down her cheek regardless, splashing onto the notepad. 

She had never been good at leaving notes, but that would have to do.  

Samar turned again, go bag clutched so tightly in one hand that her knuckles paled, and slipped down the hallway for the last time. 

Outside in the street, none of the few people around paid any attention to the dark haired woman rounding the corner with a bag slung over her shoulder, just as the first glimmers of light began to crack against the horizon.  

/*/*/*/* 

**_WEDNESDAY MORNING..._ **

Hours later, Aram's eyes finally snapped open. He rolled over as he always did, staring still half-asleep across the room. Samar wasn't in the bed next to him, nor did the sheets still feel warm from her presence, but Aram didn't think much of it. If anything, as he clambered out of bed and headed towards the kitchen with Samar still nowhere in sight, he was somewhat relieved.  

She often got up early and went for a run, especially if something was bothering her. That much, Aram had already re-figured out for himself... And between the run, and the long shower that she would undoubtedly jump into the second she returned, they would hardly have to see each other at all for the next half hour or so, let alone speak to one another.  

Aram let out a groan, stretching his bruised, aching limbs as he slumped past the kitchen counter... And then he stopped. His gaze cast sideways, doing a double take at the torn slip of notepaper sitting on the counter, just in the corner of his peripheral vision. He furrowed his brow; a note was different. Samar didn't typically leave them if she was simply going for a run. Straight away, an unsettled feeling began to rear its ugly head in Aram's gut, as his eyes scanned over that first, scrawled line; 

_ Aram, _

_ It's hard to find the right words to say what I want to say. I don't want to have to leave you. Not now, not when we have so many other things going on. I know we were just starting to get things back on track, but I don't really have a choice. The Scorpion is going to keep coming after me and the file until he thinks he's safe, and I can't stop chasing him until he pays for what he did –to my parents, to you, to all of us. _

_ So long as he's free and able to come after me, he could come after you and use you again as leverage against me too. That's why I have to go. If I go, he can't use you as leverage. It will keep you safe.  _

_ I love you so much, Aram. I know that he told you things about me. Some of those things are true while others are not, and it's hard to figure out which is which. I hope you can trust me, and know that as your memory of all of our cases returns, all of those doubts should untangle themselves. Please know that in leaving you like this, I am only trying to keep you safe. I don't ever want to see you hurt because of me.  _

_ I'm sorry. _

_ I'll come back when I can, _

_ Samar. _

Aram's eyes went wide. The sight of the only half-dried tear blotches on the edge of the page, just leaking in enough to smudge the first letter of her name, had the guilt bubbling up inside in leaps and bounds. Sure, he was angry and he was confused. Sure, he was dreading having to untangle what The Scorpion had told him so that he could understand everything that Samar had done, but despite all that, he never wanted her to  _ leave.  _

What he desperately wanted more than anything else was simply to remember, so that he could stop feeling as if he was drowning in all the expectations he couldn't keep up with... Though for now, he would settle for simply knowing the truth.  

And now he couldn't have it.  

/*/*/*/* 

It didn't take Samar long to set herself up, at least temporarily. She had started with one of the many safe houses that her Mossad team had dotted all over the world –in this case, it was a tiny, studio apartment on the edge of the District, but it was enough. It had a bed in the corner, a jar of instant coffee and a first aid kit in the cupboard, and a stash of cash and mixed weapons in a hidden partition in the wall.  

It was enough. 

With her go bag tossed in the centre of the floorboards, it was enough to stay off the grid and get by for a day or so until she found a better place to set herself up where even her Mossad team wouldn't be able to find her. That was all the time she had until word filtered back to them that she was gone and they started looking for her too.  

In the meantime, Samar propped herself up with the pillow from the bed against the wall, with her laptop balanced on her knees and the handful of snacks from the convenience store a block over, now sitting beside her on the floor. The Scorpion was off the grid and with his immunity, unable to be brought to justice by standard law enforcement procedures for some time. That left, well,  _ less _ than legal methods, but Samar wasn't about to let herself be hindered by that.  

He had tipped her life upside down not once, but twice now, and she was going to do whatever it took to bring him down.  

Aram had enough of his memory back to manage on his own for a while until it was safe for her to return. Just the thought of having to leave him had her shattered, but it was the only way to beat The Scorpion at his own game. He thought he could use Aram as a weapon by hurting him and turning him against her, but leaving Aram took that particular weapon away from The Scorpion's arsenal. If her parents' killer wanted to hurt her, he would need to hunt  _ her _ down instead. 

Which was to say, assuming he could find her before she hunted him down first.  

Samar had the file, she had Angus' latest findings, and with her laptop at hand, she had the chance to download copies of all the reports relating to Aram's kidnapping from the taskforce system before her going rogue prompted someone in a higher up office to revoke her access. She had all the time in the world to devote to doing absolutely nothing except following those leads until she found The Scorpion and ended him once and for all. Then, and only then, could she try to piece her life back together. 

It was simply a question of when. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I actually wrote in this added bit of separation-angst before all the recent canon drama happened. D: I was planning to make it a bigger arc, but the last couple of episodes have completely killed all desire to write angsty Saram now, sooo... Now it'll be a slightly smaller arc and they'll only be apart for a few more chapters. At the moment, I'm halfway through writing Chapter 17, so we'll see how it goes.
> 
> Next up; 'Eggshells and Blood Trails'


	15. Eggshells and Blood Trails

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Friday, April 19, 2019
> 
> Bonus points to anyone who catches the classic film reference!

**_FRIDAY MORNING..._ **

The atmosphere over the war room was a tense, uncomfortable one. Aram was on edge and emotional, but refused to leave his desk. He bounced back and forth between being furious at Samar and The Scorpion all at the same time, and missing her desperately. The feelings were jumbled and complicated, and trying to sort through them all seemed some kind of impossible mission.  

Either way, Aram stayed at his desk, fingers flying across the keyboard, determined to find her or at least, the truth.  

Around him, everyone else was walking on eggshells for the person they last expected to ever have to do so.  

There was a scowl of frustrated concentration on Aram's face. Already, the day was not going as well as he had hoped, and it showed. Turning up next to no new information on the whereabouts of Samar or The Scorpion had left him in a less than pleasant mood, prompting him to snap at the new filing assistant who accidentally bumped into him and his still aching muscles, nearly knocking the laptop out of his hands. Aram had saved his falling piece of treasured tech, but it came at the price of the filing assistant's watery eyes and Cooper subsequently admonishing him for his behaviour.  

And so there he then sat, silently scowling at the computer at his desk, whilst everyone else took that as the cue to leave him to it before they earned themselves any further outbursts.  

Taking the long way around the war room so as to avoid moving too close past the front of Aram's desk, Ressler slipped behind him on his way down the stairs from Cooper's office, and ducked behind the thick, concrete columns to where Liz stood at the far end of the room with her back to both of them. Ressler stopped just beside his dark-haired partner, pausing just long enough to glance at the files she was pulling out of the cabinet drawers, before quietly clearing his throat.  

'Liz,' he began. His voice was low and cautious, and he glanced back over his shoulder to make sure Aram wasn't listening. 'You're board certified. Could that bump to Aram's head have had any other effects beside memory loss?' Liz quirked up a single, skeptical eyebrow.    
'I'm certified in psychology, not neurology,' she murmured back, shooting him a wry smile over the drawer; 'what effects are you worried about?' Ressler bit his lip, pausing for a moment as he chose his words carefully;   
'He's... Agitated.'   
'Wouldn't you be agitated if you lost five years of memory, then spent three months trying to get your life back on track, only for your girlfriend to suddenly disappear right after her allegiances were called into question?' Ressler opened his mouth to respond, but quickly closed it again. It was impossible to deny that Liz wasn't wrong; what Aram had been through over the last few months was more than enough to tip anyone over the edge –but that still wasn't quite what he was getting at.    
'I was meaning the mood swings,' he pushed again; 'and the way he keeps... Missing things.' An uneasy expression crossed Liz's face where she stood beside him, and her deep blue eyes bore heavy-hearted into his own; Aram was far from his usual self. Where he used to be able to maintain focus easily, run multiple tasks all at once and think lightning fast on his feet, he seemed to have taken a hit. He was still more than capable of doing his job, but he wasn't the same Strategic and Tactical Technician that he once had been. His focus was jumpy, he was slower to click the pieces together, and some pieces he even missed entirely at first glance. Liz knew what Ressler meant –that perhaps Aram's abilities had been impacted by some kind of damage to his faculties- though she wasn't convinced.  

'He's confused. He's scared, he's recovering from multiple traumas and he doesn't know what to believe,' she tried to reason. The expression on her face contorted with apprehension, and Liz gave an awkward half shrug –her words directed just as much at herself as her partner. 'He's trying to keep his cool but it's not that easy. Of course he's going to be all over the place.'  

'If you're done,' a quiet, flat voice piped up from behind them, 'I might have something.' Liz and Ressler both jumped, turning instantly on the spot to see Aram having moved quietly from his desk and now standing behind them. It was clear on his face that he was trying to steady himself, but his jaw remained clenched and his eyes stung with betrayal.  

'Aram, we're just worried about you,' Liz quickly tried to explain. She reached out with one hand as if to reassure him, but Aram's eyes locked with hers with an unexpected fire, making her falter.    
'Because asking right in front of me whether I'm mentally incompetent is a great way to fix any problems I might have,' he drily shot back. That was Ressler's cue for his own jaw to clench at the tone.    
'It wasn't meant like that,' he stepped in. Ressler's voice was soft, but warning. For all that Aram had been through lately, Liz had enough of her own problems too –and Aram griping at her wasn't going to do  _ any _ of them any favours.  

...But Liz's face crumpled, already disheartened by the pained look on Aram's face.  

'Aram-' she began.   
'-just leave me alone. I'm fine,' he shot back, sharply cutting her off. The file that he had been about to show them dropped to dangling from his fingertips and he turned, ready to push past her and head back to his desk instead.   
'Hey.' A warning growl escaped Ressler's throat as he reached for Aram's arm, stopping him.    
'What is going on down here? Cooper's voice suddenly boomed down from the top of the stairs. Ressler paused, glancing up in response as if by instinct, giving Aram the chance to tear his arm away. Liz opened her mouth as if to explain the kerfuffle, but her voice was not the next to emerge.  

'Gentlemen,' another, familiar voice chimed in, prompting both Liz and Ressler to share an exasperated eye roll; 'you can't fight in here, this is the war room.' 

Reddington. As usual. 

It escaped the attention of everyone else in the room that Aram skulked away behind them as they turned to respond to the man strolling in from the rumbling elevator doors, flipping his fedora in his hands and with that ever-knowing smirk spread wide from ear to ear across his face. 

'Now,' he mused, 'where are we with the case?' 

/*/*/*/* 

Samar was closing in –or at least, that was what she told herself. Over a week on from leaving Aram on his own, she had left Mossad's tiny, studio apartment safe house behind too. Her new base of operations was neither bigger nor less empty, but it was a safe house of her own, where nobody would think to look for her.  

There was little to it, really. What was once an attic space of average dimensions above a restaurant, was now turned into another tiny, studio style apartment just for the occasion, that forever seemed to smell of the delicious fare being prepared below. It was owned by an old contact of hers; a former fellow Mossad officer who had left the agency just a few short operations after they had completed their training together, due to permanent injury sustained in the field. It was Samar who had saved her life, leaving Ayla blind in one eye and missing two fingers after shrapnel damage from an explosion going off by their car, but otherwise alive, well, and able to pursue her passion for cooking instead. 

Ayla had always insisted that she owed Samar a debt, but Samar had never anticipated collecting on it... But desperate times called for desperate measures, and with Ayla steering clear of nearly all her other former Mossad associates, the space above her restaurant was all too convenient. 

The steady supply of good food and the ability to sneak down into the kitchen outside of opening hours, wasn't exactly without its usefulness either.  

One paint-chipped wall of the small space was now overrun with copies of photos, reports, evidence, and all kinds of notes that Samar had scrawled for herself and stuck there as she thought of them, which were all lit only by the limited glow of the floor lamp at one end. She slept on a cot in the corner, sat on a battered, fraying sofa in the other corner across from it, and kept her go bag ready and waiting by the door. Short of ducking into the bathroom, there was nowhere Samar could go in that small space where she couldn't see the wall where she was slowly but surely piecing it all together.  

She had narrowed it down to the part of the city where the van had first been lost by security cameras. From there, she narrowed it down further by the precious little that Aram had been able to tell them after his rescue; a building under construction right in the middle of what appeared to be many buildings abandoned before completion. After that, it was a struggle. With none of Aram's tech wizardry at her disposal, and her usual access to both the Bureau and Mossad's databases now revoked due to her unsanctioned MIA status, Samar's resources to track The Scorpion down were limited.  

Samar cast her gaze over the wall for what felt like the umpteenth time; her exhausted, dark ringed eyes settling on one of the crime scene photos from Aram's handover and The Scorpion's subsequent escape. The photo itself peeked out from behind the others around it, half covered after one corner pin fell free, leaving it to slide down the wall by an extra half an inch. Samar reached for it, pulling it free with her brow furrowed curiously.  

She had missed that particular photo before... But it was one more interesting needle in the ever growing, ever frustrating haystack.  

Taken in the morning daylight after Samar had followed Aram to the hospital and the taskforce and crime scene techs had arrived at the small park clearing in their place, the photo revealed what Samar had never had the chance to spot before. 

A blood trail. 

Just a small one, likely from one of Reddington's mercenaries' bullets just clipping the side of The Scorpion's arm and letting out an initial splatter as he ran back to his van. It wasn't enough to indicate a serious injury, but it was certainly enough to follow. It was enough that he would likely have needed a stitch or two and perhaps a bandage. The Scorpion could easily do that for himself, but he would need to find the resources somewhere... 

...And given his impromptu jump off the grid from what had otherwise been a cushy office job for the last few years, after he was alerted to Angus and Aram's searching for his records, Samar doubted those resources would have come from a still maintained go bag. 

_ Hmmm.... _

Curiosity now well and truly piqued, Samar shifted her gaze to the map of the District on the far edge of the wall, that she was steadily narrowing down and colour coding in zones for the most likely hideouts. Her eyes scanned back and forth across the map, carefully picking out each and every pharmacy, doctor's office, vet, and everything else in the most likely zone that had the necessary supplies.  

There were a few more than Samar would have liked, but it was certainly better than nothing.  

She let out a sigh; aside from the agonising, dull ache that felt like it had sat heavy in her heart for far too long now, it was moments just like this that made her remember how much she missed Aram. He could have narrowed it down so much faster and more accurately, cross checking each location with any reports of break ins or other suspicious behaviour, and then scanning those results for the nearest surveillance camera feeds for any trace of their target. 

...But Samar didn't have those skills or the access to them anymore.  

She had to do it the slower, sneakier, old fashioned way. 

Teeth gritted, Samar slung her backpack over her shoulder, pausing just long enough to slip her FBI badge in her coat pocket, and her little, gold shield on her belt. They were void now, but none of the staff at any of those locations would know that when she flashed her ID in their faces and started asking questions.  

/*/*/*/* 

**_FRIDAY NIGHT..._ **

Aram lifted his head from the journal on the table in front of him when the knock on the door sounded. The day had ended on a quiet, but awkward note, with his head bowed in exhausted regret as he had shuffled away from his desk and towards the elevator to go home at last. He had pulled out his journal the moment he had returned home, desperately trying to straighten out his jumbled thoughts, settle his rollercoaster ride moods and most importantly, write the apologies he wished he could bring himself to verbalise.  

He had been sitting there for over an hour now, though he was so deep in thought that it felt considerably less. Aram furrowed his brow in confusion at the interruption that had finally managed to jolt him from his musings; he hadn't ordered any food to be delivered, and if Samar was suddenly returning home, she had a key. He wasn't expecting anyone to be knocking on the door, least of all at a little after seven o'clock. Aram stretched in his seat for a moment, his battered body aching with the movement, but he pushed through it anyway, heading for the door. He opened it, instantly doing a double take as soon as he spotted the familiar face on the other side. 

'Angus,' he blurted out; 'what are you doing here?' The bright green eyes of his closest friend since college, rolled in amused exasperation.    
'Hello to you too,' Angus mused back.  He held up a six pack of Aram's favourite limeade; 'nice to see you, long time no see, and all that.'   
'I haven't seen you in-' Aram cut himself off, suddenly contemplating that with a curiously furrowed brow, and Angus broke into wry smile.    
'Since about a week or so before you were knocked off your bike,' he said softly; 'Samar's been keeping me updated.' Aram's furrowed brow morphed into a scowl at that, but only for a split second.   
'I thought you were still in the Pacific, or I would have calle-' he cut himself off for the second time in less than as many minutes; 'wait.' Aram shook his head in confusion. Somehow the knowledge of Angus moving to the classified base in the Pacific seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it in his memory of everything that had happened before the Garrick invasion. 'That was only-   
'-Four years ago.' Angus' smile softened. 'Well, a little over. You remember that?'   


'I remember seeing you off at the airport,' Aram murmured back, 'and Riley-' Aram's gaze snapped to Angus'. His eyes went wide in sudden realisation as he then glanced down, finally spotting the little boy who was the spitting image of his father, peering out from behind his legs with a wide, sleepy grin; his honourary brother had a son. A son who had only been a few months old and was still cradled in his father's arms when Aram had seen  _ both _ of them at the airport in early 2015 before they had left for Angus' reassignment to the Pacific. Aram couldn't for the life of him remember Riley being born, or if his mother was even the same girlfriend of Angus' that he  _ could _ remember from before his memory reset itself, but somehow he  _ knew _ that Angus had a son.   
'He's four and a half now.' A hint of pride crossed Angus' face, and he reached down instinctively to tousle the little boy's sandy hair. 'Thank god you remember that much, or this conversation would have been even more awkward.'   
'What conversation?' Angus' expression immediately sobered again, and he gestured lackadaisically back to the limeade.    
'I can't reach Samar... Which means we need to talk about that file.' 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaagghhh writing angry Aram always makes me sad. Thankfully, it will not last long. 
> 
> And for those of you who missed the tumblr post, it's possible that I maaaaay have put a cliffhanger at the end of Chapter 17, but hopefully Chapter 18 will make up for it. 
> 
> In the meantime, next up is Samar's birthday in Chapter 16, 'Candlelit Searching.' In that one I tried to touch on Angus' backstory for those of you who didn't read _Life is What we Make of it_ , but I also tried to keep it short to save repeating everything for those of you who did read it. Hopefully it balances out ok. 
> 
> Don't forget to comment if you're enjoying the fic so far! :)


	16. Candlelit Searching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Friday, May 3, 2019.
> 
> Surprise bonus chapter! Happy Sunday, folks! I'm a little further ahead with writing than I thought I would be (I just finished writing Chapter 19) so I thought I'd post an extra update to celebrate the end of another week.
> 
> So here's a little bit of Angus backstory for those of you who haven't seen him in my earlier works, and some progress with Samar's hunt for The Scorpion. 
> 
> Enjoy! :)

**_FRIDAY EVENING..._ **

For a moment, it didn't even occur to Samar that it was her birthday. Every day since tracing The Scorpion's blood trail, had been spent the same way. It was the third pharmacy she went to that had been the charm; the staff didn't recognise the photo of him, but they  _ had _ just had an overnight break in and robbery right after his getaway from Reddington's team, with bandages, emergency suture kits, antiseptic and antibiotics all disappearing from the shelves. 

And then there was the icing on the cake; the charred remains of an all too recognisable van dumped in an alleyway just a few blocks over.  

Everyone Samar asked in the surrounding buildings had all said the same thing; the vehicle had been dumped there after Aram's original abduction, and the Metro PD only had limited footage of the man who had driven it –which was to say, every shot was of the back of his head. Regardless, as soon as Samar laid her eyes on a copy of the photo that the locals were keeping handy in case they saw him again, she knew exactly who it was.  

It was one more piece of footage that was useless on its own, but that was slowly filling in the gaps in the jumbled picture she already had.  

Every day in the two weeks after that had been spent napping, while she used the cover of each night to scour the surrounding area for The Scorpion's hideout. The days had blurred together in her mind, and in Samar's relentless searching, she had almost lost track of what day of the week it was entirely. After all, whether it was Monday, Thursday or Sunday meant nothing; all that mattered was hunting for her parents' killer and Aram's abductor, and finally bringing him down. 

Finding what appeared to be a whole four blocks of crumbling old buildings that were supposed to undergo redevelopment into a new office building and shopping mini-hub before being abandoned, felt like such a victory that Samar almost couldn't believe it. 

_ Almost. _

She wasted no time on celebrations, despite the whooping feeling in her stomach that came with what felt like her first solid success at all since having to leave Aram behind. She turned next to the small bag of gadgetry she had taken with her from the Mossad safehouse, instantly putting into practice the rusty skills she had learned during field training once upon a time, to put them all together. She had four surveillance cameras at her disposal, and she strung each one up at various, strategic points around the main entrances and exits to the abandoned blocks, hoping beyond all else that it was enough. 

And then she slinked back to that tiny space above the restaurant... Which was exactly when she knew what day it was, because Ayla was taking far better care of her than what Samar felt she deserved lately. She slinked down the alleyway alongside the restaurant, making quick work of the stairs from the back to the space above it, pausing as she noted a small tupperware container sitting on the doorstep. She picked it up, breaking into a wistful smile at the sight of a fresh, chocolate cupcake and an unlit candle through the brightly coloured plastic.  

It was her birthday.  

She had forgotten in all the days blurring together, but her first ever partner in the field had not.  

Slipping through the door and letting it fall softly closed behind her, Samar dragged her go-bag along behind her over to the sofa. She pulled out her laptop and then the trusty lighter that was hardly ever used but remained tucked in a side pocket anyway, opening up the laptop to start streaming the view from her cameras, before poking the half-melted purple candle into the swirl of chocolate frosting and setting it alight. She shuffled further back into the sofa, watching camera feeds slowly come to life on the screen in the otherwise dark apartment lit only by that tiny, flickering flame atop the cupcake in her hand.  

Samar took a slow, deep breath. For a split second, she wondered why on earth she was continuing along with the quest that for the moment, seemed to only make her feel worse. She missed Aram so much, her stomach rarely stopped turning... But she wanted to keep him safe, and the only way to do that was to finally take out of play, the rogue element that after all these years, was never going to leave her alone. Samar closed her eyes; she had never believed in the power of wishes –at least, not since her parents' murder had stripped her of that innocent belief in all things magical in the world- but if ever there was a time where she hoped they would work, it was now. A slow, soft breath escaped her lips, vanquishing that flickering flame in an instant, and plunging herself into darkness once more. 

The sweet, soft, chocolate sponge melted in her mouth as she kept staring at the four camera feeds arranged in a grid on her screen, all the while wondering in the back of her mind what Aram was doing, and if he knew what day it was.  

And then it happened. One painfully familiar silhouette lurked into the frame of one camera, prompting all thoughts of Aram to vanish from Samar's brain.  

The Scorpion. 

She had found him.  

/*/*/*/* 

While Samar sat in the dark, focused on watching The Scorpion's every move, Aram sat with his journal once again. Everything went in the journal now; every thought that ran through his brain, every new memory that came back, and every last fact he learned about the people in his life. Thankfully, he was never one to hold a grudge, and that was a foundational aspect of his personality that continued to shine through despite the holes in his memory. All his energy for anger and frustration was already starting to fade, replaced instead by an exhausted desire simply for the truth... And with the writing in his journal allowing him to work through the confusing mess of feelings too, somehow it was all helping to bring a certain level of consistency back to his emotions that was starting to salve the mood swings.  

At the very least, he now hadn't snapped at anyone in the office again in a few days, and the wide berth they had been giving him was finally starting to narrow again.  

A knock on the door timed perfectly well with him scrawling down the last sentence of the day, but this time it was planned. Samar's absence left a hole that Angus and Riley were determined to fill and now, with that exhaustion setting in, Aram was glad. Their presence was a calming, grounding one, just as Samar's had been before The Scorpion had torn them apart. He quickly closed the journal and scuttled to the front door, opening it with a tired, wistful smile. All of a nanosecond passed before the smaller half of the sandy haired, twinkling green eyed duo barrelled forward, wrapping his arms around Aram's legs and burying his face into his knees. Aram's smile instantly widened into a grin and he reached down, picking the little boy up and tousling his hair. His muscles where The Scorpion had beaten him gave a small twinge at the movement but by now, the tiny pains were just an annoyance rather than a true discomfort.  

Aram carried Riley inside, neither of them at all ready yet to break apart their cuddle, with Angus following along at their heels with an amused grin of his own across his face. While Riley remembered all of his time spent with Aram all too clearly, Aram did not –and neither he nor Angus had any idea how to explain to the four and a half year old that his honourary uncle barely remembered him, all the while Samar was missing. But, that initial swell of affection that Aram did now remember –meeting Riley after he was born, and his first few months- was enough for him to pick up the slack and if anything, make him all the more determined to remember.  

He now had all the history mapped out in his journal now too. Riley's mother had struggled to bond with the little boy after he was born, with her overwhelming frustration eventually spiralling to the point of her leaving him and Angus behind. Angus had searched for her, desperate for the love of his life to come home, but the note she had left them had been clear; she never wanted to see them again... So when, a few months later, the NSA offered Angus a transfer to their new, highly classified base in the Pacific that didn't officially exist, he had taken it. It was a new start for him and his little boy, who he loved dearly. Riley had grown up there, learning to walk on the stretch of beach by their new home... But after three years, Angus' assignment there had been up, and rather than extending his contract, he had decided to return to the States ready for Riley to turn four so that he could have a chance at a better pre-school. 

That had been about a year ago now.  

It didn't matter that it felt like half a world had separated Aram from his best friend for those few years; they had kept in contact through encrypted emails and the few holiday and birthday cards they had been able to sneak through... And ever since Angus and Riley's return, they had spent more than enough time together for it to feel as if they had barely been separated at all.  

Or at least, that was the conclusion Aram had come to in his journal from the stories that both Samar and Angus had told him. 

'Uncle 'Ram,' the little boy beamed, jolting Aram from his internal musings; 'we got a cake for Aunty Samar.' Aram stared back at the little boy in amazed disbelief. His wide smile radiated with an enthusiastic innocence that left Aram with a bittersweet feeling. Clearly, not only did his not-quite-but-practically nephew know Samar, but he had got to know her well in the time since he and Angus had returned from the classified base in the Pacific -time which of course, Aram barely remembered. The two had bonded, and enough that he missed Samar and he recognised her birthday even when she wasn't there.  

Angus had been steadily going through everything he knew of their history with him and that was helping somewhat to untangle the web of manipulation, but if nothing else could ever cement in his mind that Samar wasn't who The Scorpion had tried to convince him that she was then  _ that _ , the deep affection that Riley seemed to have for Samar, left a distinct nagging feeling somewhere deep inside that Aram couldn't deny. 

He turned on the spot, glancing back at Angus and spotting the cardboard box in his hand bearing the logo of the local bakery that they all loved. He knew it was Samar's birthday; for one, it had been marked in the calendar at the front of his journal and secondly –which Aram didn't realise- it had also been in his phone calendar since well before the accident, but with Samar missing, he hadn't anticipated making too much of a fuss. Angus slid the box onto the kitchen counter, shooting Aram an apologetic smile. 

'I wasn't sure whether to mention it or not,' he said softly, 'but Riles has a knack for remembering dates, and he insisted on getting something.' Aram lowered Riley back to his feet, and Angus lowered his voice a little more so that Aram could hear him  but the little boy now darting towards a dining chair, could not; 'I think he just wants to blow out the candles for her and wish that she'll come back.' 

A breath caught in Aram's throat and he gave a slow nod of understanding. More than anything, he wanted Samar back too. Their relationship may have been fractured The Scorpion's manipulations, but he wanted to be able to make sense of it all with her. If nothing else, he at least wanted to know that she was _ safe. _

'Well then,' Aram mused back, adding a certain level of enthusiasm just for Riley's benefit, 'I guess we'll have to sing as well, and maybe she'll hear us.' The smallest inhabitant of the room broke into another grin and squirmed in his seat in excitement but for a moment, neither of the two grown men really noticed. Aram's smile wavered with uncertainty, but he steadied himself, trying to keep it there. The idea of celebrating Samar's birthday right then wasn't easy, given the circumstances but at the same time, it also felt right –as if somehow, it would help the universe right itself and get things back on track. Angus' eyes crinkled with a gentle encouragement, and he clapped Aram on the shoulder. Aram then turned, pulling down plates from the cupboard, ready for the cake in the box that Angus was opening.  

'That's not the right plate,' Riley piped up, his tiny brow furrowing at the sight of the three matching, glass plates in a row on the counter. Aram did a double take, and Angus glanced up from the cake;    
'Oh,' he quickly began to explain, 'you've got the kidsafe plastic stuff in the next cupboard over-' he gestured at the cupboard at the far end of those in the row above his head '-the first time we came over here for dinner after we moved back to the mainland, Riles accidentally cracked one of Samar's nice plates... By the next time we were here, you guys had already gone out and bought plastic ones, just to be safe.' Angus shook his head in exasperated amusement at the memory, and Aram couldn't help but let out a chuckle. 'He likes the Batman plate and the dinosaur cup,' Angus added, watching Aram reach into the cupboard and then suddenly falter at the sight of not one, but two separate sets of plate, bowl and cup sets, each bearing different kid-friendly designs.    
'Isn't Batman his favourite?' Aram asked, pulling down the two as instructed.   
'That's what Samar said when you went shopping.' Angus nodded back; 'but you thought the dinosaur set would be more educational and-'  
'-it got magic powers,' Riley excitedly burst out over him, from the table. Aram furrowed his brow in confusion as he filled the curious cup in question... And second later, he understood. As the water flowed into the cup, the red dinosaur emblazoned on the plastic, turned blue. He grinned; though Aram didn't remember it, he could see the appeal, and instantly knew exactly why he had picked it over the Batman set the first time around. 

Once again, there was that magic of discovering things for the first time, all over again.  

'So we bought both,' he finished the train of thought for all of them, and Angus quickly nodded. Aram smiled softly to himself as he set both items in front of Riley.  

For all the mixed emotions, and for all the gaps in his memory, somehow... That seemed right.    
  


/*/*/*/* 

A few hours later, Samar watched on from a distance as the matching pair of blondes –one tall and gangly, and one tiny- emerged from the front of the building, walked a short while down the street, and climbed into their car. Both had smiles on their faces, but it was the expression on Angus' face that reassured her the most. He was happy, but he was also calm and content. However the evening with Aram had gone, he wasn't stressed or anxious.  

Samar let out a deep breath, watching their car drive away. She gave a slow nod, switching her gaze next to the living room window that faced out onto the street. She could just make out Aram's silhouette brushing past, pulling the curtain closed for the night. It was long enough to note the lack of tension in his shoulders before the light behind the curtain flickered off, leaving the window dark.  

And with that, Samar shifted her backpack more comfortably on her shoulder, and began to move once more. She kept her head down as she slipped away down the street, but there was a wave of relief that washed over her all the same.  

He was ok. She knew he wasn't likely to be over the moon with joy, but he seemed to be coping.   

It wasn't much but for now, just seeing him was all she needed.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, we start our turn for the action-packed in Chapter 16, 'Demons'. :)


	17. Demons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Tuesday-Wednesday, May 14-15, 2019

**_TUESDAY NIGHT..._ **

His sleep that night was not a restful one. Aram tossed and turned, pulled just enough from his slumber to be vaguely aware of movement around him, but not enough to comprehend what was happening or be able to wake himself up. It was that curious state somewhere halfway between being truly awake, and being completely out cold, where the line between reality and dream was impossible to see.  

He rolled over in the bed, his brow knitted in a sleepy frown as he buried his face, eyes clenched shut, back into his pillow. The slim shadow slipping in and quickly back out of the apartment, pausing just long enough to watch him sleep for a moment, moved on undetected.  

/*/*/*/*

**_WEDNESDAY MORNING..._ **

When Aram woke up properly, he barely remembered the intrusion –and the little he did remember, he dismissed as a mere dream. That was, of course, until he stumbled, still half-asleep and yawning, from the bedroom, down the hall, and into the living area.  

One very particular mug was positioned oh so deliberately, right in the centre of the table; Samar's favourite mug, next to a large envelope. Aram's eyes snapped wide awake and his heart skipped a beat. Samar had been there. In the dead of the night she had slipped in just as seamlessly as she had first slipped away.

Anyone could have left an envelope, but only a select few knew which mug was Samar's favourite to be able to leave it there like that.  

With a breath caught in his throat, Aram reached for the envelope, opening it gingerly. He gazed inside, furrowing his brow as he pulled out the contents; a pile of surveillance photos, all time stamped and dated over the last few days, bearing a hauntingly familiar face. After all the beatings, and all the difficult questions, that face was burned into Aram's brain.

The Scorpion.

Aram flicked through the photos in his hand, carefully taking in the detail in each one. On just one of them, the timestamp of exactly two in the afternoon, was circled twice. He swallowed, hard, taking that in too.

Samar had found the man who was so hellbent on tearing her life apart, and she was getting ready to move.

/*/*/*/*

Aram's level of focus in the war room was notably higher that day. The detail Samar's photos gave them clues not just to where The Scorpion was hiding, or the patterns in his comings and goings, but it narrowed down all the parameters for every other search Aram had been running too. It enabled him to zero in on all kinds of reports from Metro PD that he had previously either overlooked or left in the pile of uncertainties; everything from the reports of the break in at the pharmacy and the burnt out van that Samar had already found, to two further burnt out vehicles, a mugging of a suspected gang member, and another break in at a computer store, all in the same general area. All together, they presented a curious timeline of The Scorpion's panicked dash off the grid, but it was the vehicles in particular that drove Aram to a more tunnel vision approach.

Before being thrown back into a van and driven to Rock Creek Park, Aram had noted in his blur of exhaustion and agony that it wasn't exactly the same van as the one he had arrived in. Now, staring at the reports and the crime scene photos of the burnt out vehicles, he could see why; for each trip, his abductor had stolen a different vehicle and then later abandoned it, in the hope of not being traced.

Little did he realise, exactly the opposite was true.  

While tracing the first van after his initial abduction had only led them so far due to a series of damaged surveillance cameras, overlapping the gap-filled footage of _both_ vans each taking slightly different routes, was enough to piece together a single path... One, that went straight into an abandoned construction zone that matched the buildings in Samar's photos perfectly.  

That in turn, was more than enough for Cooper to order Ressler, Liz and the SWAT team to raid the address, hopefully not too far behind Samar.  

...But Aram kept going. The third of the burnt out vehicles left him with an uneasy feeling that at first, he couldn't quite put his finger on. This time is was a car, a dark sedan for which both the initial theft and the subsequent abandonment pre-dated that of the two vans. Now so determined to follow up each clue that his fingers seemed to know exactly where to fly across his keyboard before his brain did, Aram gritted his teeth. He enhanced the image of the half-burned license plate, running that in turn for anything else of interest... And there it was. In all of a nanosecond, there was the red flag that made sense of it all.  

The original Metro PD case report from when he had been knocked off his bike.  

Aram had never been able to look over it before; for one, his accident wasn't a Bureau investigation. It also pertained to him directly, and by the time he was recovered enough from his injuries that he was allowed back at his desk, Metro PD had marked the case unsolved and pushed it back to the bottom of the priority pile, prompting Cooper to _discourage_ him and Samar from looking into it afterwards... But as Aram now snuck into their servers, bringing up the surveillance footage of the dark sedan driving along not far behind his bike and then suddenly making the very deliberate turn to veer into him, he couldn't tear his eyes from his screen. He watched himself crash into the truck and then fall with a thud to the ground, rolling into unconsciousness. He watched as the driver of the car stopped perfectly, stepping out onto the road with an eerie sense of calm, before ignoring his unconscious form entirely in favour of rifling through his backpack.

For the second time that day, the face in the images was one that Aram was never going to forget.

It was The Scorpion who had knocked him off his bike, starting it all. Not an accident as first thought, but a very deliberate first attempt to take down the technical analyst looking into him and steal back the file... The very file that at that point, had been still in the mail to him from Angus' office.  

Aram kept watching on, the weight of realisation now sinking deep inside, as the man who had hit him then tossed the backpack back down on the road in disgust when he couldn’t find the file. He paused to take one last look at Aram's body crumpled there on the ground, before getting back into his car as calmly as he had stepped out of it, quickly driving away again long before the flashing lights and sirens turned up.  

Angus had already found that The Scorpion was alerted to their search and had gone rogue early on –even earlier, in fact, than they had originally suspected, but this... This was the realisation that not only had the twisted maniac been aware of their search early on, but that he had taken steps to stop them early on too –and that was why though he had been surprised to learn of Aram's memory loss back in that cold, office bathroom cell, he hadn't asked any further questions of the story about the accident.

The man who had killed Samar's parents had been determined to destroy him and Samar too, right from the moment he had run his first search into her history.  

Aram closed his eyes, letting out a slow breath. His stomach churned to the point that he wanted to throw up but somehow, his mind felt clearer now than it had in weeks. Angus and Riley had been working on him, doing everything they could to try and ease any doubts about Samar's loyalties, but now Aram knew with even more certainty than he ever had before; everything The Scorpion had done was a manipulation long before any of them had ever realised. Whatever truths were in the files he had thrown in front of him, Aram was sure now that The Scorpion had been twisting them.  

He had to trust Samar, no matter how many questions he still had.

And even more importantly, he had to stop her from walking straight into the lair of the man who was going to stop at nothing to destroy her.

/*/*/*/*

Samar stood in the shadows of the building across the street, watching as The Scorpion's latest stolen vehicle moved slowly down its empty path. He slipped seamlessly from the car to the inside of the half-built office building that had sheltered him for so long; where he spent his time when not there, Samar had didn't know, but there he was now...

...And her target had no idea that she was right there, watching him.  

Her hand fell softly to her hip, instinctively checking for the presence of her weapon. It was there –not that she doubted it. Samar took a breath, steadying herself; she had spent weeks now, searching for the man who had killed her parents and torn apart her life twice over, and in that time she had been so focused on _finding_ him, she had spared no time at all for figuring out what to do when she did. To a certain extent, the fact that she had now found him still didn't feel real; that at any moment she could walk in and end him forever, just like that.  

_Breathe in... Breathe out... Breathe in... Breathe out..._

If ever there was a time to reflect on her Mossad training and her journey from there to the present, it was now.  

One more breath in, and Samar began to move, crossing the street from the shadowy building and following The Scorpion inside. She had done enough recon in the last few days during the times she knew he wasn't there, to figure out exactly how few security measures he had installed inside -clearly, he was used to being on the offensive rather than the defence- but none of that told her what part of the building he would be in now.  

With her weapon drawn, Samar moved slowly, calculatingly from room to room, listening for him as she made her way through.  

The weight of the situation didn't escape her for a moment. The man who murdered her parents was the carrot dangling on a string over her head, _just_ out of reach. She was _so_ close now, but still so far. She had no idea in what room or on what floor he was, but she was going to find him... But she was alone. There was no earpiece in her ear, no soft murmurings as Aram monitored from a distance, guiding her along the best possible path, or more emphatic declarations from her team to say each room was clear. One foot after the other, Samar crept through the building, sweeping from room to room. She listened out for any sign of movement, any clue to where The Scorpion might be, but the silence was eerie. It made the tiny hairs prickle up on the back of her neck, and the sound of her heart thumping out of her chest suddenly seemed deafening. She was alone. There was no room for error. With no backup, Samar was relying on the element of surprise; one wrong step and her whole plan to take him down would be undone... And there would be nobody rushing in from the next room to rescue her.  

But she had to do it alone.  

Nobody close to her would be safe until The Scorpion was gone.  

She could only hope that Aram had deciphered the clues she had left, just in case anything went wrong.  

The first floor was clear. Samar turned, darting quickly up the stairs to the next. Another room was empty, and another, and another. She turned, moving those few steps further down the corridor towards the next room to clear.  

_Breathe in... Breathe out... Breathe in... Breathe out..._

'You know,' came a low, painfully familiar voice. Samar gritted her teeth, the dread plummeting in her stomach as she turned right in the doorway, facing him.  

He had crept up on her; out of one room and into the corridor behind her. Again.

That smug smile etching its way slowly across his face instantly set off the rage swelling inside, and but Samar tried to steady herself.    
'I remember the day your parents died,' The Scorpion went on, 'I remember it clearly.'  
'Don't you dare say a word about my parents,' she seethed back. The fury deep inside shook her bones, though her voice remained frighteningly calm. Her weapon pointed directly at him, but so too was his at her. Samar's gaze locked with his, though her peripheral vision was already scanning the space around them, searching for a way out of their standoff. The older man's lip curled into a far more arrogant expression. He thought he had the upper hand, but Samar wasn't about to give in that quickly.  

'Do you know what they said to me?' He sneered, 'after I went straight past you and your _precious_ baby brother playing in the garden?' That caught Samar's attention; there was no way it wouldn't and The Scorpion knew it, but Samar tried to tune it out. As curious as she was, she also knew better; he was winding her up, trying to force her hand and prompt her to make a move prematurely out of sheer frustration. Though, at the same time, she couldn't move. Her weapon was trained directly on him, and moving would almost certainly ensure his being fired in an instant. 'I went into your home... Your mother was still making your lunch and your father was reading to her from the newspaper. I could hear them talking, laughing, not paying any attention to what you were doing outside.' Samar's jaw clenched at his words. Each and every last one felt like a knife being plunged into her chest. The man who killed her parents had no right to speak of them and yet there he was, making the worst possible implication. Her hand began to shake, no matter how hard she tried to stop it. 'They begged me not to hurt you...' Samar's eyes stung. Her free hand curled into such a tight first that her knuckles paled. She _wished_ he would stop talking. 'Funny, really. I could have killed you both outside before either of them even realised I was there, and they were still stupid enough to beg me not to hurt you. Lucky for you, killing you wasn't my assignment then-' that self-satisfied smile curled into a smirk '-but it is now.' The Scorpion's weapon lifted just ever so slightly higher, now pointing squarely at her chest.

...And that was exactly what Samar was waiting for.  

Her lip twitched, just enough for him to break into the tiniest of confused frowns, as she replied;

'Then I guess you're going to have to wait a little while longer yet.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Did I remember to warn you all that there was a cliffhanger? If not, then whoops. My bad. There's a cliffhanger!
> 
> (Now excuse me while I run away, cackling evily, and hide so you can't all come after me with your pitchforks)
> 
> Next up, Chapter 18, 'Bleeding Out'! :D


	18. Bleeding Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Wednesday, May 15, 2019.
> 
> Picking up straight after the last chapter, here we go! :)

The Scorpion's split second of confusion was all the time Samar needed. She stepped back into the room behind her, her free hand swinging out to grasp the edge of the door and slam it into his face. He fired straight through it; once, twice, three times –each bullet whizzing straight past Samar as she ducked sideways where he couldn't see. The door was automatically self-locking from the inside –she had noticed the design out of the corner of her eye while he was talking. He couldn't simply push it open to chase after her. Instead he had to shoot his way through, and though it would hardly take any time at all for his bullets to tear through the lock, it was those few precious seconds Samar needed to put some distance between them.  

It was a wide open conference room, with the ceiling not yet filled in to form the floor of the next level up. It led nowhere except back out into that corridor, or straight out of the hole in the wall where the full length window facing the street should have been, but the chaotic array of half full boxes, bags of cement, planks, bits of piping, sawhorses and scaffolding were the perfect obstacles to work around for their final battle ground. Samar jumped, reaching above her head. She swung for a moment, letting out a grunt as she struggled to pull herself up by the rails onto the platform over her head. The shots into the door kept firing, and Samar couldn't help but pause, turning back to glance over her shoulder as the door finally came down and The Scorpion charged forward. She ducked, continuing to race along the platform above him and then climb further up before he noticed. She could see him. She could see the way he was looking around the room, searching for her ahead of him instead of looking up. His weapon lowered slightly and The Scorpion began to creep, glancing around each and every obstacle in the room in the assumption that she was hiding behind one, waiting to tackle him from the lower angle... But Samar kept climbing.

She moved along, now three platforms above him and following them all the way around the room, running one hand along the guard rail... And then she waited.

Her weapon slipped back against her hip. Both hands curled tightly around the guard rail, and Samar crouched down to the platform's edge. Below, The Scorpion was still searching for her, and growing steadily more disgruntled at the fact that he couldn't find her. Samar couldn't help but let out a smirk. Nobody ever thought to look up.

And now she was about to take him down.

Heart still pounding in her chest, and hyper aware of every breath that escaped her, she waited... Until he strode underneath the platform at _just_ the right angle.

Fingertips still clutched around the rails, she bounded off the platform, swinging her legs out to launch a powerful, two footed kick squarely in his face, knocking him down in an instant. Samar's fingers released the rail, her kick then followed seamlessly by her sailing through the air, fuelled by the momentum. The Scorpion was already down, but she landed on top of him, pinning him and knocking the weapon from his hands. The impact winded him, but that didn't stop him from trying to fight back. Samar let out a sharp gasp of pain as he grabbed her pony tail and pulled, _hard,_ wrenching her off him. He rolled, trying to push himself up from under her, but she wasn't about to give up either. She pulled her arm back, throwing a punch that missed his nose, but clipped him hard enough on the side of his jaw that a distinct crack sounded from his neck when his head whipped sideways. The blood dripped from his mouth, and he let out an enraged roar. The Scorpion pushed himself up, pulling his leg back and ready kick, but not before Samar jumped up too, barrelling forwards to knock him down all over again. They rolled, The Scorpion using the momentum from her tackle to wind up on top of her and wrap his hands around her neck. Samar's hands clamped down on his, trying to pull them off, but his grip was too strong. She squirmed in his grasp, trying to use her knees to push him off, but he held on, knocking her head back against the ground to daze her. Samar gasped for breath. Her vision began to blur, and her chest began to tighten as the supply of oxygen quickly began to run out.

The sound of her heartbeat echoed in her ears. Every beat felt as if she was in slow motion.  

This could not be the way she was going to die. Not now, not like this. Not when she was so close.  

But she couldn't breathe.  

Everything began to go dark. Her attempts to fight back grew weaker and weaker until her limbs refused to move.  

And then all of a sudden the oxygen spilled back into her chest in a rush. Samar gasped, her eyes flickering open only to be practically blinded by the light now streaming back in. Her parents' killer had spotted his weapon lying on the floor just feet from them and in his trademark style, he had let go of her just to lunge for it. Samar could see him moving for it, but for a moment she was paralysed. It was as if her brain was on a three second delay as she tried desperately to catch her breath. All she could manage to do was reach down, her shaking fingers struggling against the smooth metal of the weapon on her hip. From the corner of her eye she could see his hand reaching around the one on the floor, lifting it and then turning back to face her. There was a look of utter fury on his face as he lifted it, pointing it straight back at her.  

Samar's heart was racing. She rolled, her muscles finally kicking back into gear. The first bullet narrowly missed her –the sheer combination of her roll, and her would-be-killer's own daze of pain from the blow to his face. Samar rose back to her feet, stumbling over the obstacles on the floor as she pulled her gun, firing back as best she could.  

She kept moving backwards, but paid little attention to where she was stepping. All her focus was on him... On desperately trying to take him down before he could do the same to her. One of her bullets clipped his already injured shoulder, throwing him sideways until he tripped over a length of piping on the dust-covered floor. Samar's feet stopped moving. She held her ground, watching him fall. The breath caught in her throat; still he had his gun trained on her, but lying there on the floor he was no longer moving too fast for her to hit her target.  

Only for a split second did it suddenly register in her brain just how dangerously close she was to the floor to ceiling hole in the wall.  

She fired one more shot, almost in perfect synchronisation with him.  

/*/*/*/*

Aram felt like he was about to throw up. As soon as he had uncovered the truth, he had raced out of the Post Office in the desperate bid to catch up with Ressler and Liz. But the time he arrived, out of breath from running towards them, they were already in their vests, lined up with the SWAT team and ready to breach.

And that was when the shots rang out.

Two shots, so close together that they almost sounded like one, but the ears of the trained agents could hear the difference.  

Aram's gaze snapped upwards, just as everyone else's did, following the noise.

And that was when his heart began to plummet into his stomach. One floor up, an unmistakable burst of red sprayed from an even more unmistakable figure where the window should have been. Samar crumpled, the force of the bullet pushing her that extra half an inch backwards over the edge.  

Aram raced forwards, his instinct to break her fall somehow kicking in even before those of the SWAT team, not that there was much any of them could do when she was already falling. At only one floor up, they had all of a nanosecond to react before she hit the ground in front of them... But a nanosecond was all Aram needed. On the side of the road, right between them, was a flaking dumpster overflowing with all the abandoned garbage that went with the abandoned construction site. Aram reached out before he even finished running, the force of his full, adrenaline-fuelled body weight pushing it ahead of himself and under her.

It was just enough.  

One more second and it would have been too late.

Samar landed with a thud in the pile of thick, cardboard boxes and empty canvas cement bags. Aram's gaze was trained on her; everything around him seemed to move in a blur. She was covered in bruises but most alarmingly, Aram noticed, was the dark ring of hand shaped bruising around her neck. He stood frozen, taking that in. He had no idea what had happened inside the building before Samar’s fall but whatever it was, it only added to the awful combination of guilt and dread swirling inside. The members of the SWAT team with medical training pushed him out of the way, lifting her down from the dumpster and lowering her to the ground, while the rest of them rushed into the building. She was conscious, but dazed, her eyes flickering around and staring blankly at nothing in particular.  

The bullet had landed in her leg, now lodged precariously in her femoral artery. Aram found himself frantically tugging the tie from his neck as he listened to the two medics tending to her in front of him as if he wasn't even there; they couldn't risk moving her again until the ambulance arrived, not even slightly. The bullet acted as a plug in the wound, still allowing a steady but slim trickle of blood from the wound, but stopping anything further. Even with it still there, they needed to tourniquet it –and _fast,_ before Samar bled out, but that was all the movement they could manage. Any more than that and they risked bumping the bullet free, effectively reducing the time they had between getting Samar to the hospital and her bleeding out, to almost nothing. Aram pushed the tie into their hands, crouching down beside her as they quickly pulled it tight around her leg, stemming the blood flow. Samar's eyes began to roll back into her head, and Aram took her hand in his, clutching it desperately.  

She had to pull through. She had to. He couldn't lose her now...  

...But now all he could do was wait.

/*/*/*/*

Several hours passed before Samar's eyes began to flicker again, but in that time Aram barely moved from her side. The severity of the situation was indisputable, but ultimately came down to the timing and the question of precision. Once Samar was in the safe hands of the hospital and rushed into surgery with the bullet still firmly in place, she would be ok...

...Or at least, so Aram kept trying to remind himself.  

Logically, he knew that once she was in surgery, she would be fine. The procedure to quickly remove the bullet and patch up the hole was far from the most complicated, and once it was healed there would be no lasting damage, but trying to get past the adrenaline rush of trying to make sure that she got there in time wasn't quite so simple as flicking a switch. The image of her falling from the building, limbs flailing helplessly in the impossible mission to stop what couldn't be stopped, was one that he couldn't wipe from his brain. It swirled around and around in an endless loop as he sat there –first in the waiting room while Samar was in surgery, and then again by her bedside while he waited for her to wake up.  

Somehow all at once, the hours seemed to fly by and be frozen in time all at once.  

There was an odd sense of déjà vu that washed over Aram as he sat there, waiting. He knew he had sat by her side in hospital before, but the memories were fuzzy at best... And yet it felt familiar, and not simply because Samar had told him the stories. It was that weird feeling of remembering without really remembering, that drove Aram crazy.  

Nonetheless he sat there, determined not to leave her until she woke up, if for no other reason than to tell her as soon as possible that he was sorry for ever doubting her... That he knew the truth and he trusted her now, no matter how many questions he still had. He held her hand, his fingertips every so often brushing softly back and forth against hers while he was lost in thought. The hospital room was cold, and it was quiet save for the occasional beeping of machines and the distant voices of medical staff out on the ward. It wasn't at all like either of his own two recent trips to the ever noisy, ever busy emergency room. It allowed his thoughts to wander, for his brain to reflect on everything that had happened, and with a far greater intensity than what was actually helpful. The sheer emotional overload of the hours since he had woken up that morning, as draining.  

Samar's fingers began to move in his hand, jolting Aram from his staring blankly into space. His eyes snapped to hers, watching them flicker ever so slowly open. She stared up at the ceiling in a daze for a moment, before her head finally rolled on the pillow, gazing around at her surroundings. Those dark eyes of hers finally landed on his, and Samar broke into a groggy smile.  

'Did I get him?' She asked. Her voice was croaky, her throat hoarse from everything that had happened during her fight, and the subsequent time spent unconscious. Aram stood from his chair, reaching for the plastic cup of water and the straw on the table beside her. He couldn't help but crack a smile as he held it up to her for a moment, letting her take a few sips. There was no greeting, no 'hello' or 'nice to see you again' but rather, she was straight to the point, and it felt oddly appropriate.    
'Yeah,' he softly replied, setting the cup back on the table and sitting down again, 'you got him.' It hadn't taken long at all for Ressler, Liz, and the rest of the SWAT team to sweep the building and find The Scorpion's crumpled body on the floor right where Samar had left it. Her single bullet had struck him dead in the chest, killing him instantly, and well before she was even halfway through the air to the dumpster. What happened to him, however, was something Aram had almost entirely forgotten about until he was already in the hospital waiting room. He had been so swept up in making sure Samar was going to be ok, that the fate of her shooter, the very man who had kidnapped him, beaten him senseless for days, and then tore her away from him, had seemed completely and astonishingly irrelevant. It wasn't until the crime scene was all wrapped up and Ressler had called to see how Samar was doing, that Aram remembered to ask at all.  

A wave of overwhelming relief washed over Samar, and she closed her eyes again for a moment, the tension visibly draining from her body.  

It was over.  

No longer could The Scorpion run free to wreak havoc and tip her life upside down as he pleased. Her parents' killer was gone.

Forever.  

She had won.

'I knew you'd find me,' Samar's soft voice spoke again. Her hand squeezed his as she spoke –the gentle, unspoken 'thank you' for having understood the trail she left behind and more importantly, for simply being there at all. Aram simply watched her for a moment, knowing exactly what she meant.    
'You shouldn't have gone by yourself,' he murmured. Samar's eyes flickered open again, and she stared back at him, a more apologetic expression now crossing her face.    
'He wasn't going to stop until he thought he had me,' she muttered back, 'I couldn't let him hurt anyone else... Least of all you.' Samar paused for a moment, studying the level of earnestness on his face. 'I'm sorry I had to leave you,' she added, softer this time. Aram shook his head. He knew she had hated to go, and in the scheme of things, it was the least of his worries now. The corners of his lips quirked up with the tiniest of reassuring smiles and he reached over, pushing the loose hair back off her face and tucking it behind her ear. He lingered there, resting his fingertips along her cheek... He still wasn't quite in a place where he could bring himself to kiss her again, but he was overwhelmingly glad to have her back, all the same.    
'Just rest,' he whispered, 'you're safe now... Just rest.' Samar held his gaze for a moment longer, before allowing her eyes to fall softly closed once more.

Aram sat back in the chair, watching her doze. At last, there was a wave of peacefulness that seemed to wash over the room.

They had so much to talk about, so many questions and so many stories of their time apart to share, but for now Samar was safe, and it was all over.

…And for now, that was all that mattered.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up; Chapter 19, 'Unfortunate, but Necessary'
> 
> Are the Wednesday/Thursday chapter postings working for everyone? I know they tend to do better during the season, but not so much during the hiatus. If it's easier for everyone to find and read the chapters when I do weekend updates instead of mid-week ones, let me know. Now that we're on hiatus I'm tempted to switch to weekends, but I won't if everyone prefers the mid-week posts. 
> 
> As always, don't forget to leave all your questions and comments here or on tumblr! I don't bite, I promise! :)


	19. Unfortunate, but Necessary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Sunday, May 19, 2019

**_SUNDAY..._ **

Samar was driving the doctors crazy. As far as she was concerned, the four days she had already spent in hospital so far were four days too many, and it showed. Aram couldn't help but force himself to stifle a laugh every time she argued with the nurses or muttered under her breath. _This,_ was the Samar he had been falling in love with again before The Scorpion had tried to tear them apart.

...Which was to say, until she did finally get to go home, and trying to keep her still and resting would become _his_ job... And all of a sudden, every time he remembered _that,_ the sheer amusement on Aram's face instantly sobered.  

Samar had one more day to get through, before she was allowed to go home on Monday, and she was adamant that it couldn't come fast enough. After three days not being allowed to move her injured leg at all, now at least she was allowed to walk gently with the support of crutches –if for no other reason than the fact that the doctors had to be sure she could move around safely once she returned home. Despite that, however, Samar still wasn't allowed to go much further than around her room a couple of times, or to and from the bathroom, for another few more days.  

On one hand, the lack of freedom to move around was driving her crazy, but on the other hand... Those first few days of not being able to move at all were still fresh in Samar's mind, so she gritted her teeth, taking whatever she could get and daring to push it _just_ that little bit further every time until someone told her to stop.  

...That someone, of course, more often than not ended up being Aram.

He hovered beside her, one hand just an inch off her back in case she stumbled, while Samar shuffled for a few laps around the room.  

She kept most of her weight on her good leg, though still she winced when she stepped with her injured one. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the way Aram began to fidget every time she passed her bed as if he was all too ready to help her back into it –and the way the fidgeting seemed to intensify with each further lap. All at once he was anxious about her potentially straining herself too much, but cautious of saying it one too many times. By the fourth lap, Samar could hear a sharp intake of breath from beside her as she reached the bed and then continued past it. That she was _still_ upright was pushing Aram's self-restraint to its limits.  

'Just let me get to the sofa,' she muttered to him. Samar's gaze remained laser focused on her goal –the not quite two-seater chair that was just a few feet further across the room- but Aram's fingertips loomed ever closer to the small of her back, brushing against her intermittently as her pace began to slow before his did.    
'Samar-' he tried to interject.  
'-Please?' Samar shot back. There was a level of desperation in her voice that made her wince internally as she spoke. 'I spent three days straight in that bed. If I have to keep sitting down, at least let me change the view every now and then.' Her feet came to a stop, her gaze now turned to stare back at him over her shoulder not quite pleadingly, but certainly close enough. Aram hesitated. He glanced back and forth between the bed and the chair, weighing it up. Samar's pace was slowing; her movement was growing more painful the longer she went on -whether she would admit it or not- and he knew she needed to stop. She was almost exactly halfway across the room, with the distance back to the bed just about further from her now than the distance onwards to the sofa. Aram bit his lip; she would have to go back eventually, but so long as she stopped at the sofa for a short while now, the return trip wouldn't be quite so bad, and well... He knew how desperately she craved a change of scenery from the hospital room that had been her confines for days now. The view from the sofa wasn't much, but it did give her a line of sight to the window and the sunset in the sky behind it which was, apparently, a vast improvement compared to the bare, pastel green wall directly across from her bed.  

Aram gave a quick, reluctant nod and Samar gritted her teeth, pushing on with those six or seven steps further towards the sofa. Aram continued to hover behind her, his hands grasping at her waist to help her lower onto the seat when she reached it –still he couldn't quite bring himself to shower her in the affection of kisses or even holding her close, but he was more determined than ever to ensure that she recovered, and _quickly._  

As she landed in the seat, Samar let out a deep breath that Aram hadn’t even noticed that she had been holding. Her eyes blinked slowly with a tiredness that hadn't been there before she started her laps; no matter how determined she was, with her injured leg, those few laps were all it took to wear her out. He paused for a moment, standing there and watching in concern until she raised an eyebrow, prompting him to hurriedly sit down beside her. Samar tilted her head to rest it against his shoulder. For a second, Aram's automatic instinct was to tense but he took a breath, forcing himself to relax his shoulders and let her stay there.  

Silence fell between them for a moment, the brief tension passing on its own as Samar rested there quietly. The tiniest hints of a soft smile began to etch their way across Aram's face at just how peaceful it felt. The sky beyond the window swirled with shades of pink and then purple, trailing the sun as it seemed to disappear behind the buildings in the distance. Without even realising it, Aram tilted his own head, resting it atop Samar's in kind.  

'Those cases that The Scorpion tried to show you-' her voice began to murmur in his ear. Aram's eyes widened with apprehension.   
'-We don't have to do that now-' he quickly tried to stress, but Samar shifted her head on his shoulder, looking back up at him with a wistful smile.    
'-All I can do is sit around,' she insisted –albeit gently, 'it's as good a time as any to talk.' So far, Aram had successfully avoided broaching the subject for the last three days, and it hadn't escaped Samar's attention. He was calmer with her now than before she had left, but those first few layers that they had built past the foundations before his capture, remained crumbled. At some point the conversation had to happen, and Samar was eager to move past it sooner rather than later.    
'You're tired,' Aram softly protested, 'you should rest now.'  
'I don't see that changing in a hurry, do you?' Samar continued to coax him. 'Even if you're not angry anymore, you're still curious, I know, so... Which cases stuck with you?'

Aram let out a soft sigh, but knew that she had him defeated. He reached down for the backpack sitting by the edge of the chair, pulling his work laptop out onto his lap. Samar watched as he pulled up the remote access to the Post Office network, and opened up case reports that were all too familiar. His cursor flickered slowly back and forth over each one in the struggle to decide which to address first... Until at last, it fell still.  

'You were fired from the taskforce when Liz was on the run, for giving her information and helping her hide,' he began. Aram shuffled awkwardly in his seat as he glanced back at her again, already wishing that the conversation was over; 'why would you do that?' Samar however, broke into a pensive, but not at all fazed expression. Almost the entire time she had been away, the regret for keeping things from him had swirled around in the back of her mind, taunting her almost as agonisingly as The Scorpion himself. As difficult as she knew the conversation was bound to be, she was determined now that the only way they could move forward was to get through it. Samar took a breath.  

'Liz called me,' she softly began to explain, 'and then it was a matter of sticking to the law like Ressler, letting Liz get caught, and then potentially letting her or Reddington be killed, or... Helping her, which broke the law, but did help her and Reddington stay alive.' Samar glanced up again; 'I had to choose what I thought was best at the time.' Aram gave a slow nod, weighing that up in his mind.   
'I can see that,' he murmured back.    
'You didn't at the time,' she mused, 'though I guess it's different when you read it back instead of being caught in the moment.' Samar held his gaze for a moment now, both of them letting out the tiniest of smiles; they were making progress.  

Aram switched his attention back to his laptop for a second, spurred by their current momentum.  

He flicked through the digital copies of all the files that The Scorpion had thrown in his face during his captivity... Now that he had gone over them all in more detail and with the level-headedness of Angus by his side, trying to put them all in perspective, most of them seemed far more reasonable than they had during his sleep-deprived, badly beaten state. That Samar had killed a man by throwing him out of a window in Dubai -even if under Mossad’s orders- wasn't something that Aram _liked,_ but after further reading had revealed exactly who the man was, he could accept it. Everything that had happened with her brother a year or so later had been hard for Aram to wrap his head around too, but given who Shahin had turned out to be, Aram had found himself amazed that it hadn't ended even worse.  

If nothing else, going through all those cases again in detail had proven one thing; every file The Scorpion had showed him, had been missing half of its pages.  

After that, there was only one case that really stuck out in Aram's mind.  

'What about...' He began again, biting his lip; 'January, 2017-' the sentence was cut off by a sharp intake of breath from beside him. Aram didn't even have to finish explaining which one it was. Samar could already guess.    
'That wasn't an easy case,' she slowly spoke up. She shifted uneasily beside him, pulling ever so slightly away from his shoulder; 'you know that I still work for Mossad, so they sometimes have me do operational work directly with them around our taskforce case schedule.' Aram nodded, following along easily. 'In that case they had me plan and lead a raid, just as they often do-' Samar tensed for a moment, as she continued on '-it shouldn't have been any different from the norm, except afterwards our taskforce took on a case that overlapped. We had to investigate a company that had also been the target of my Mossad raid. That put me in an awkward position that was completely out of my control.' This much, Aram knew. The case reports had told him so... But Samar wasn't done; 'just as what we do in the taskforce is classified and can't be shared with those outside of it, what I do with Mossad isn't supposed to be shared either.' Samar's brow furrowed as her gaze dropped to the reports on Aram's screen. 'So I was in the difficult position of knowing things that I knew could help our Bureau case, while also knowing that I wasn't allowed to share them.'

Aram's curious frown began to ease, and his eyes widened in understanding.  

'So whether you shared Mossad information with us, or withheld it,' he finished softly for her, 'you were breaking your obligations to one or the other.'   
'Exactly.' Samar shot him a small, rueful smile; 'for as long as I could, I tried to avoid compromising either, but then I was kidnapped and all hell broke loose.' A breath caught in her throat as the memory of her kidnapper's knife trailing down her arm, suddenly flashed before her eyes again. Without realising it, Aram's fingertips curled their way protectively around hers.    
'I read that,' he murmured. His gaze flickered almost instinctively back to the screen, panning over the summary of events that had transpired during the case, and his brow knitted with concern again, just the same as it had often over the last few days when Samar had pushed the limit with her walking laps; 'you could have died.' Aram's stomach unexpectedly began to churn just at the thought.  
'I would have said something earlier if I honestly thought they were going to target me, but I didn't.' The regret was clear in Samar's voice but at the same time, she didn't know what else to say. Knowing what had happened in hindsight made it difficult, and while she wished it could have gone differently, there was nothing she could do to change it. The raid with Mossad had gone flawlessly, and the Bureau case would have been much the same too. It was the unusual circumstance of the overlap between them that had thrown the spanner in the works, effectively making it easier for her target to identify and come after her again later, and there was no way she could have expected it. Samar let out a soft sigh. In the end, all she really could do was what she did in any case where she had nearly died; focus on the fact that she _hadn't._  

She lifted her gaze to meet Aram's eyes again; he was studying her expression curiously, but offered her a small smile all the same.  

He understood –or at least, a little more than he had before. Either way, it was enough.

'I guess that was the case that bothered me the most,' he said quietly. Aram nodded again, this time more for his own benefit than anything else. 'Though, I have to ask...' Aram suddenly added. His brow furrowed again for a moment and he stared back at Samar, earnestness crossing his face as he thought back to The Scorpion's words; 'you haven't shared any information on the sly from our taskforce on any other occasion, have you?'  
'No.' Samar shook her head, gritting her teeth with a certain vehemence; 'never.'

And that was that. The silence fell between them again, and Aram closed his laptop, pushing it away. There were always going to be more questions as time went on, until his memory returned in full, but for now... That was more than enough to make sense of the worst of it all.

And if nothing else, Samar still needed her rest. Talking through everything was one of those unfortunate necessities, but so was taking a break. By now the view through the window had changed from one of swirling colour to one of darkness, with only two or three tiny, twinkling pinpricks somewhere far away in the distance. Samar's head found its way back to his shoulder, her eyes struggling to stay open again now that the need for concentration was no longer, but still she continued to fight the urge to let them fall closed for more than a second. Aram crept one arm around her, allowing her to fit more comfortably against his side.

'Any other burning questions?' Her almost inaudible voice tickled his ear. Aram couldn't help but shake his head with a touch of exasperated amazement; her stubbornness truly was astounding.    
'Just one,' he whispered back, breaking into a grin. 'How _did_ you manage to throw that guy out of a twelfth storey window?' Against his shoulder, Samar's eyes crinkled with contentment.    
'Well, if I told you that,' she sleepily chortled back, trying -and failing- to stifle a yawn, 'I'd have to kill you.'

Aram chuckled under his breath at her quip, but otherwise stayed quiet. He fell still too, in the hope that Samar would finally stop fighting her exhaustion and fall asleep. Slowly but surely, she stopped trying to mutter to him and her eyes stopped stubbornly flickering open again. Her breathing began to slow and at last, her weight sank further into his side with slumber. A soft smile crossed Aram's face as he watched her dozing at last; Samar hadn't managed to make her way back to the bed in the end but deep down, he had never expected that she would. His arm around her tightened slightly around her waist, while the other slipped gently under her knees, lifting her and carrying her back to her hospital bed.

He pulled the blanket over her, tucking it just under her chin, and then hovered there a moment. His fingertips ran softly along her cheek, pushing the loose strands of hair back behind her ear and suddenly... Somehow, he felt completely at ease. Aram leaned in, only a little wary now, pressing a slow kiss to her forehead before lowering himself back into the single chair by the bedside.  

For all the confused mix of emotions he still felt inside, he stayed there, watching on as she slept like her quiet protector against the darkness.  

There was one thing he knew; they would find their way back eventually, he was sure.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, there's a hint of fluff and then... The ring returns, in 'Secrets and Treasures'!
> 
> Now. Here's the thing. The hit counter on ao3 tells me that there are about 40-50 of you reading each new chapter of this fic, and yet each chapter only gets 1-2 comments at the most (which in turn, are left by 2-3 absolutely amazing regulars who comment on just about *every* chapter, so shoutouts to you guys) but lately it seems I'm getting even less feedback again. The last chapters posted over a week ago in each of my two current works have both received zero comments so far.
> 
> What about the rest of you? That's quite a lot of you who read every single chapter I've ever written and never say a single word. This has been the case for pretty much every fic I've written so far, and it's really, *really* disheartening for me as a writer. 
> 
> Every so often I beg you guys; if you enjoy the fic, please comment, and I'm not just saying that to be funny. I am the *only* consistent Saram writer in the fandom, and I finish every single fic I write, despite being alone in my own little Saram corner and not having any other regular, active Saram content producers to get excited with. Never have I abandoned a fic, unfinished. I put a *huge* amount of time and effort in to writing these fics and posting their updates regularly until they're complete which, considering it's fanfiction, you get to enjoy for FREE. 
> 
> You might think leaving a comment is silly or a waste of time, but it is actually incredibly important. Every time I see a comment pop up, it leaves me smiling all day. Knowing that people are actually interested is what motivates me to *keep* writing more fics for you to read. I don't get paid or anything else at all for writing these stories. Comments are all that I can get. So, not getting any comments from most of you, has the effect of making me wonder why I should bother writing at all. Those couple of chapters getting no comments lately has been so disheartening that this week I've struggled to write any more than a couple of paragraphs, and I seriously had to push myself to post this chapter at all.
> 
> Please leave a comment if you read and enjoy something; and that goes for any fic by any writer. We don't bite, I promise! It doesn't have to be a huge essay, and it doesn't have to be on every single chapter. You could leave nothing more than a smiley face and a 'I loved this' on every fifth chapter, and I would be jumping for joy... But please, say *something*.
> 
> Don't be afraid of not knowing what to say. Don't feel anxious because English isn't your native language, or if there are typos and spelling errors. Don't worry if your comment is just keyboard smashing because a cliffhanger has you yelling at your screen (actually, that is one of the best kinds of comment!) 
> 
> Writers write to be read. You as readers are more important than you know. Every comment is a precious gem that has an impact, so please let writers know that you're here! And if you're still really, really anxious; I have the anon feature enabled on my tumblr ask box, so you can always send feedback there.


	20. Secrets and Treasures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Sunday, June 2, 2019

**_SUNDAY..._ **

Eighteen days had passed since The Scorpion's death had left an oddly overwhelming feeling of peace to wash over Samar, and the last thirteen of those had been since she was allowed to return home... And for the last two of _those,_ she had been _finally_ allowed to walk shorter distances without her crutches.  

Samar still wasn't allowed to run for another few weeks, or even walk overly fast, but at least it was something.

That said, two and a half weeks post-injury was more than enough to have driven her stir-crazy. Every chance Samar had to get out of the confines of the apartment even for the shortest of walks –even if _that_ happened to be little more than a quick wander around the grocery store to pick up a few forgotten items- was a momentary sense of freedom to be savoured. So, when Riley in all his childish innocence asked Angus if Samar and Aram could go with them on a picnic in the park, Samar leapt at the opportunity.

Well, leapt in a certain manner of speaking. Leaping was _far_ from being on the list of physical activities that her doctor said she was allowed to be doing while her leg was still healing.  

Sitting on a park bench alongside their picnic blanket, and strolling around the playground to push Riley on the swings, however, was more than acceptable. Riley was beyond ecstatic to see Samar again, to the point that he wouldn't leave her alone. The little boy clambered all over her to sit on her good leg, his arms coiled in utter contentment around her neck and shoulders, rather than joining his father and Aram on the blanket that Samar couldn't lower herself enough to sit on. Typical of his age, he asked what seemed like a million questions about the bandages and strapping that wound all the way around her upper leg, stopping just above her knee and easily visible under her chino shorts. For a moment, the questions caught Aram's attention; that protective sense of alarm going off in his head in anticipation of answers to the questions that were far beyond the scope of his closest friend's four year old son... But he had no reason to worry. Completely straight faced, Samar didn't miss a beat in concocting an elaborate tale of injuring herself whilst battling a dragon that had Riley gasping with delight.   

Maybe it was the gentle warmth of the early summer sunshine on his skin, relaxing him, but Aram couldn't help but feel more at ease beside Samar now than he had since well before The Scorpion had tried to pull them apart. The unbuttoned necklines and the rolled up sleeves gave them that laidback, casual atmosphere too, but it was watching Samar and Riley together that really made Aram smile. Angus had told him of how well they got along, but actually _seeing_ it... Well, that was altogether different. Watching them there, with Riley so comfortable and happy in her presence as he scampered about between all three of them and the playground, had the bubble of affection swelling in Aram's chest –and once again, there was that odd sensation of the scene unfolding before him being familiar despite not remembering it.  

The trust between them was steadily building. Since their conversation in the hospital, they were both determined to talk about everything that crossed either of their minds. Though neither of them wanted to admit it, the overwhelming series of obstacles over the last few months were taking their toll, leaving both of them feeling more fragile than they would have liked... But at the same time, they were united in that fragility. They were stubbornly determined not to let any further obstacles pull them apart or away from the bid to recover Aram's memory. Already, they were back to the point where Aram kept waking up to Samar asleep more or less on top of him –not that he had much a choice in that particular matter- and just like when he had been hovering over her in the hospital, he found that he had no qualms in instinctively looking after her on the occasional night or two where she woke with a start in the early hours, haunted by dreams of The Scorpion and falling from the window of his hideout.

'Ice cream?' Angus' soft voice tore Aram's attention from watching Samar hobbling slowly but eagerly across the grass and sand after Riley for yet another round on the swings. He glanced back, eyeing the ice cream truck parking along the edge of the park, ready to set up shop there as it often did in the early afternoons of the weekend. He broke into a grin as he instinctively patted his pockets in agreement, but then his expression suddenly crumpled.    
'Ah,' he grimaced, 'I think I left my wallet at home.'  
'My treat.'  
'No, no, it's ok. I'll run back and get it. It's only two blocks and back.' Angus' brow furrowed with a curious expression that Aram couldn't quite identify.  
'Then...' He mused softly, 'I'll walk with you.'

Angus rose to his feet, gesturing for Aram to do the same. They both glanced back, giving Samar a casual 'we'll be back' sort of wave, knowing that she was far too preoccupied with enjoying being out of the apartment to question it. She and Riley would be fine for the twenty minutes –at most- that they were gone.  

'It's good to see you two trying to piece your lives back together again.' Angus' voice was low but confident as they began to wander back down the street. Aram quirked up a single eyebrow, though deep down he knew better than to be surprised; Angus had always been quietly perceptive, the sort of person who observed everyone and everything –half the time, without anyone else ever realising- not unlike the way Samar so often did, but with an even gentler, reservedness about him. It was one of the many reasons Angus had earned the NSA's attention at the same time Aram had.    
'We're working on it,' he murmured back.    
'And now that you are...' Angus went on, 'I need to ask you something... Aram, exactly how much do you remember of the few weeks leading up to your accident?' The soft smile vanished from Aram's face, replaced by a flash of dread. Conversations that started like that never went well.    
'Not much,' he replied slowly, 'why?' Angus hesitated without responding, prompting Aram to reach for his arm, stopping them both in their tracks. 'Angus-' his voice lowered with seriousness, and Aram gritted his teeth '-everyone's tactic since my memory was wiped has been to try and tell me things slowly out of fear that too much at once would be overwhelming. Samar kept cases back, you didn't show up at the door to let me know that you were back in the States until after she went missing.' He tilted his head, wordlessly asking him not to do the same again; 'I think we’ve established that tactic isn't necessarily the most effective one.' The tiniest hint of a smile tugged at Angus' lips.    
'You always did become outspoken when things were pushed just that little bit too far,' he mused.  

Aram, however, wasn't fooled by the delay tactics. Angus began to move down the street again, but Aram scuttled along after him, quickly catching up.

'Angus,' he pushed, 'what don't I remember this time?' Bright green eyes fell for a brief moment, watching footstep after footstep pushing onwards along the sidewalk rather than meeting Aram's gaze.  
'Before the accident,' he began again, finally –and slowly- glancing up; 'you were planning to propose. I didn't want to say anything in front of Samar because at the time, you were planning to surprise her with it.'  

Aram's eyes widened and his heart skipped a beat. By now they had reached the front door of his building but for a moment, the fact that he was reaching into his pocket for his keys out of sheer habit, didn't even register in his brain. The memories had been trickling back slowly but surely like a constant drip from a leaking faucet, but those few weeks immediately preceding the original accident remained completely dark. He had no recollection whatsoever of any plan for a proposal.  

'Why didn't you tell me while she was missing?' Aram gasped. Rounding the corner of the stairwell from the building entrance, Angus rolled his eyes in exasperation at himself.    
'Riley would have overheard,' he quickly pointed back. The elderly woman who lived two doors down from Aram brushed past them in the opposite direction down the echoing stairwell, shooting them both a dirty look until Angus lowered his voice; 'and as smart as he is... He's still only four years old. He would have let it slip.'

Aram opened his mouth to protest, but quickly thought the better of it. Samar already had enough on her plate as it was with her injury and his lack of memory of their relationship. She didn't need the added grief of knowing that the accident had torn a proposal from her as well, let alone hearing it secondhand from the casual and innocent outburst of a child who had no understanding of its significance. Aram steadied himself, exiting the stairwell and heading down the hallway towards his front door.

'Then why tell me now?' He asked. Angus bowed his head, a wistful smile slowly etching its way across his face.  
'I thought you should know, especially now that you're working things out.' His voice was soft, and he gave a sheepish shrug; 'plus, you would have had the ring somewhere when the accident happened... And if you haven't found it already, where did it end up?'

The front door pushed open. As expected, his wallet was right there on the counter where he had left it, and Aram pocketed it in all of a second. Angus' words, however, seemed to echo in his brain. He panned his gaze curiously around the apartment, contemplating that. Now was as good a time to look as any, and as their eyes met again, even without a single word exchanged between them, they both knew they were on the same page. They bolted in opposite directions, scouring the apartment from opposite ends until they met in the middle again.  

They had to move fast. The pretence of having forgotten his wallet was one that meant their trip back couldn't take too long before Samar would start to wonder when they were returning. The drawer in Aram's desk was dismissed instantly; he had been into it enough times since the accident to have found a ring if it was in there. The backpack had been destroyed during the accident had long been thrown out and now couldn't be searched. Every other nook and cranny that that Aram and Angus could find in their limited time, however, earned itself a once over... But the ring wasn't in any of the kitchen cupboards or drawers. It wasn't hidden in the bathroom, in the wardrobe, or anywhere on the bookshelf. Aram was at a loss for where to look next. Whether he'd had it with him at the time of the accident or not, it didn't matter; it would have been already hidden in the apartment, or it would have come home from the hospital in his effects. Either way, it had to be there somewhere...  

Except they couldn't find it _anywhere._  

If nothing else, engagement rings weren't cheap or something that anybody wanted to lose –but more than that, the fact that there _was_ one, _somewhere,_ only served to further emphasise just how much of their relationship he still had to catch up on. Aram didn't remember it but now that he knew about it, he was desperate to find it anyway. He needed to see it, hold it, _cling_ to it in the hope that it would be another of those things that triggered memories of her to return and end the difficulty of having to rebuild.  

'What about over there?' Angus suggested. Aram turned on the spot, his gaze following his college brother's gesture in the direction of the coffee table and the drawers underneath. He frowned, contemplating that for a moment, before quickly shaking his head.    
'I doubt it,' he remarked, 'we don't use those drawers for anything.' Or at least, that was something Samar had told him when he was looking for other possessions that he hadn't been able to remember after the accident.  

He had no memory of joking, once upon a time, that it was for that very reason that those drawers were the perfect place for hiding treasures.  

With nowhere else to look, Aram let out a sigh. A flash of sympathy crossed Angus' face but they both knew; the search would have to be continued another time. For now, they had a picnic to return to and a cover story to maintain.  

The front door fell closed behind them, leaving the apartment empty once more.

And in the back corner of the leftmost drawer, that tiny, velvet-lined box remained undisturbed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, a little more of Aram's memory returns, but so too do the taunts of The Scorpion, in 'Fighting as One'.
> 
>  
> 
> For those of you wonderful readers who feel awkward about never knowing what to comment, would an ice breaker of sorts help? Back in the day when I was writing/posting 'Different Worlds' I had a little game called 'Guess Whimsy's Nonsense' in the chapter end notes. For those of you who didn't read that one, it was basically just that I asked a question at the end of each chapter, and people could try to guess the answer if they wanted to. It's not serious and there are no prizes, but it's a fun, sometimes silly, way to get more people involved in reading and commenting. 
> 
>  
> 
> So here we go... In Chapter 22, which I am writing currently, which canon character do you think will make their first appearance in this fic? Best guesses will get shoutouts. Good luck! :D
> 
> Oh, and -for those of you who are wondering, my tumblr is whimsyandsomething so feel free to find me over there :) I've also just started a sideblog called whimsys-fics that is just for my excess fic ramblings. Check it out! :)


	21. Fighting as One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Thursday, June 13, 2019

**_THURSDAY EVENING..._ **

With each new day, and despite the lingering twinges of dull, aching pain in her leg, Samar grew steadier on her feet. It would be another two weeks before she could start slowly running again but by now at least, the crutches were long gone, and she could easily reach the front door before Aram did when the sound of knocking floated down the hall and into the living room. Samar squinted one eye through the peep hole and instantly furrowed her brow in confusion, hurriedly reaching to pull the door open. 

'Director Cooper,' she warily greeted him, 'we weren't expectin-'   
'-I'm not staying,' her boss replied over her, though his voice was steady and he offered a small, warm smile all the same. 'How's your leg?' Something didn't feel right. There was no reason that Samar could think of for him to stop by, unannounced on a Thursday evening only an hour or so after Aram had only just returned home from the Post Office himself. Samar studied Cooper's gaze for a moment, but as was to be expected of a man who had been in the game for far longer than she had, his expression was difficult to read.    
'It's getting there,' she slowly murmured back. The skepticism must have been clear in her voice, for as Aram appeared in the apartment's hallway behind her, just as curious at the sudden appearance of their boss, the tiniest hint of concern flickered across Cooper's face. 'What's wrong?' Samar asked, a little firmer this time. Cooper took a breath, clearly not happy to be the bearer of bad news. The expression on his face turned serious. 

'We have a problem,' he began. 'According to our sources, Iranian intelligence is-' he paused for a split second, contemplating his choice of words  _ '-less _ than pleased to know that one of their former high ranking operatives was killed, let alone that it happened on US soil.' Samar winced, but Cooper wasn't done;  _ 'and _ at the hand of a Mossad agent who's supposed to be here working with the Bureau.'   
'I didn't really have much of a choice,' she quickly objected. The grave expression on Cooper's face flickered with sympathy, and he raised one hand in a quieting, reassuring gesture.  
'I know,' he murmured back, quiet but firm all at once, 'but unfortunately their displeasure has reached the ears of the people above me, who are starting to wonder why we had a Mossad agent working out of a classified Bureau black site in the first place.' Samar's jaw clenched instinctively in response and out of the corner of her eye, she noted Aram shifting on his feet, moving ever so slightly closer to her. 'They're concerned about retaliation and they’re gunning for your temporary suspension since you went off the grid to be turned into a permanent dismissal rather than me reinstating you once you've recovered. Some of them have also recommended that Mossad recall you to Tel Aviv immediately so that the United States doesn't get caught in the middle of an international incident.' 

Samar's face crumpled. Her heart skipped a beat. She knew exactly where the higher ups were coming from; the backlash that came from a Mossad agent killing an Iranian agent was yet another point of contention between the two countries, and it was far from something  _ anyone _ wanted to be stuck in the middle of, let alone the US government... But that didn't mean she was ok with it. Her stomach instantly began to churn with apprehension, and again she noted Aram moving protectively ever closer to her until his fingertips grazed softly against her back. After everything else they had been through in the last few months, this was one hurdle too far. She had always known that in being a Mossad agent on loan to the taskforce, there would always be a chance that she would be recalled for other operational duties at some point, but right now... The timing of it all made it so much more startling. Samar steeled herself, forcing herself to hold it together rather than start shaking with anger, misery, and everything else in the overwhelming spectrum of emotions that seemed to running through her all at once in the face of the realisation that their reprieve –their relief that everything seemed to be over at last now that The Scorpion was dead and gone- was only temporary after all.  

'But, sir-' Aram immediately tried to interject.  
'-I'm doing what I can to sway them towards letting you stay,' Cooper continued over him, 'but I thought I should let you know what was happening sooner rather than later.' Samar's jaw clenched. It wasn't Cooper's fault and they all knew it. As much as she wanted to scream and yell and possibly even throw something in sheer frustration, she needed to hold it in rather than fire that grief in the direction of the person who didn't really deserve it, especially when that person was still standing somewhat awkwardly at the front door. Samar took a breath, trying to calm herself.  

'Thank you,' she muttered. Her voice was clipped and her words short, but Cooper seemed to take no offence. He gave a quick, sympathetic bob of his head, as Samar's gaze fell to the floor.    
'I'll keep you updated,' he softly replied. There was nothing more that Samar or Aram could think of to say as Cooper turned on the spot, leaving them there.  

Samar let out a sigh, leaning crestfallen into Aram's side.  

She had thought The Scorpion was gone, but even from his grave, it seemed, he would never stop taunting her.  

/*/*/*/* 

Neither of them slept well that night. Samar's injured leg already made sleeping on her side uncomfortable, and her disgruntled tossing and turning during the night as a side sleeper forced to sleep on her back for once, extended far enough that it disrupted Aram's ability to sleep too, but now... With the anxiety swirling in the backs of both their minds over the idea that she might never be allowed back on the taskforce, or could even be ordered at any moment onto the next flight out of the country for good, their restlessness only seemed to intensify.  

Again, the sheer emotion was playing havoc with Aram's memory. She had only just come back to him and now, no matter how determined they both were to rebuild, the threat of losing her again now suddenly dangled tauntingly over their heads all over again. Aram didn't want that. He clung to her in his sleep as if somehow, that was all it would take to keep her there. Images flashed before his resting eyes; all of Samar and all of moments that Aram couldn't place in the timeline within the missing five years, but that didn't matter.  

He remembered nights together, clinging to one another in overwhelming emotion before. He could remember holding her, dancing and laughing in the middle of the living room in the flickering warmth of candlelight during a power outage that had plunged them into darkness. He could remember her soft lips on his, over and over, and over again in what seemed like a highlight reel of tender moments... In Aram's dreams he could see the curves of her bare skin, barely covered by the tangled sheets and glowing in the glimmers of moonlight shining in through the cracks in the curtains. There was no context for any of it and yet, the feeling of devotion to her was wondrously overpowering.  

But Aram's sleeping state was far from a deep one and it took little to wake him, instantly causing those images to fade from his mind. His eyes flickered as Samar grumbled in her sleep, rolling for the umpteenth time until her face seemed to bury itself in his chest and her leg wrapped over and around him in the bid to comfortably support it and lie on her side at the same time. Her arm crept softly around his waist and then fell still again... And if the way she then let out a deep sigh of contentment after that was any indication, it seemed that she was finally comfortable –or at least, temporarily.  

Squeezing his eyes tightly closed and then quickly opening them again in the bid to hurry his brain's process of differentiating between the dreams and reality, Aram shifted slightly, allowing her head to rest more comfortably on his chest while his own arm wrapped around her back, fingertips coming to rest softly along the curves of her hip. Aram tilted his head, pressing a slow kiss to her pillow mussed curls.  

It seemed far from the right moment to mention the visuals that had just flashed before his eyes, let alone the wave of emotion and longing washing over him and sending his heart racing, but all the same it seemed right to let her know that he was there... That she wasn't alone in spending the night staring intermittently and bleary-eyed up at the ceiling that they could hardly see in the darkness of three in the morning.  

'I miss the things you knew before the accident,' Samar’s soft voice, low and husky in her middle of the night, sleep deprived apprehension, broke the anxious silence. 'The you who would tangle around me after we made love, holding me close, burying your face in my hair, and never wanting to let go because you knew that quietly, I loved that contact much as you did.' The breath caught in Aram's throat; it was almost as if she could read his thoughts. It was coincidence, he knew; if Samar had to leave, it being before he fully recovered his memories would be adding awful insult to already painful injury, and so she was holding on to him for everything she could get before anyone tried to pull her away from him again. Still, she was trying desperately to hold herself together, but Aram could read between the lines and his arm around her tightened slightly as he listened. 'The you who knew me well enough to know just  _ how _ significant it is that I said that, because I  _ never _ ask you to hold me-' Samar paused, her voice wavering for a moment '-no matter how badly I need it, I'm so used to having to do things myself that now it's ingrained, and I hate having to ask for things like that... But you knew that. You always had such an uncanny ability to know when I needed it even if I didn't say anything, and you wear your heart so proudly on your sleeve, that you would always just hold me like you were the one who wanted it, so I never had to ask.' Her voice cracked, and Aram felt the faint warmth of a single tear finally rolling free from her cheek and splashing softly against his shirt. 'I miss you knowing that, because I need it now.' 

'I'm sorry,' he whispered back. Aram closed his eyes for a moment, his heart aching desperately for her, but he didn't know what else to say. Since her time in the hospital they had promised themselves to be honest with one another. Just as she had asked him not to hold back in talking through the things that confused him, he had asked her not to be so overly gentle on the gaps in his memory by hiding the more difficult things that she wished he knew but didn’t want to tell him… And perhaps it simply was because she was so miserable and sleep deprived, but she was doing exactly that, and he was sorry. He was sorry for everything; the way that one twisted killer somehow managed to never stop turning her life upside down, the way that he felt like he was letting her down by being powerless to stop it and most of all, for not being able to remember everything when it seemed he needed to most.  

How he  _ wished _ he could remember everything, for both their sakes.  

They both knew none of it was his fault, but sometimes that ever constant trickle of memories slowly flowing in just didn't feel like it was enough.  

'I know,' Samar murmured against his chest, 'just like I know that if the roles were reversed and I was the one who couldn't remember, you would stand by me for as long as it took to get everything back to normal... So it's ok.' She let out a sigh. 'But I'm still going to be wistful, sometimes.' 

Aram held her as close as he possibly could. Even then, he never wanted to let her go. He rubbed gentle circles against her back, tilting his head to rest it softly against hers, anything to keep her there, wrapped up in his arms forever.  

'And I'm still going to stand by you on this.’ As quiet as his words were, the determination in his voice didn't waver for a second as Samar closed her eyes, listening to the way it seemed to reverberate in his chest. 'I want to rebuild what we had, so we're going to fight this. Together.' 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, Aram and Samar's fight to stay together begins!
> 
> Come on, folks! I'm still waiting on more guesses for which character you think will make their first appearance for this story in Chapter 22. I'll give you a clue; he's a character that has appeared in only two episodes of the show so far. Good luck :D


	22. Plans in the Shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Sunday, June 23, 2019

**_SUNDAY..._ **

This time it was the gentle warmth of early summer sunshine that tickled Aram's cheeks and this time, no longer restricted by injury, Aram had driven himself. It had been a while, but this time he knew exactly where Meera's headstone was and he walked there with purposeful strides, rather than those of cautious searching.  

It didn't matter that he had come to terms with her passing now; seeing her name chiselled across the cold stone still made a breath catch in his throat. It reminded him of yet another tragic and unnecessary loss that their life's work had cost them at the Post Office, whether that be loss of life, the loss of simple innocence, or anything in between. The last five years had changed them all, and it was as if Aram had the front row seat in seeing it. For the rest of them, it was a gradual change over several years that seemed hardly noticeable from day to day but for Aram, those five years of memory that he had lost and was still slowly earning back, meant that the difference in his co-workers between now and then seemed all the more stark.  

The latest battle that he and Samar faced was just one of many that they had all been through over the last few years.

Aram's gaze panned across the headstone, his lips quirking up with a soft smile at the sight of a slightly crumpled array of colourful flowers resting to one side –crumpled not from age, but from the emotional grip of small hands.

Clearly, Meera's children had been to visit at some point in the last few days.  

Gently, Aram knelt down to lower his own handful of flowers –a few early dahlias of the season just to bring some brightness to the otherwise overly sombre field of stones.   

'Hi,' he murmured softly to her, resting one hand along the top edge of the stone. 'It's been a while. Last time I was here, it was snowing.' Aram paused, thinking back to that snowy day back in early February when he had last visited. Somehow, it was hard to believe that since then, it had been nearly five months. 'Anyway-' he cleared his throat, steadying himself '-I, uh, thought maybe I should bring you an update. Everyone at the Post Office is doing well, or... As well as they can with the jobs that we do, I guess.' Aram bowed his head. Absentmindedly as he spoke, he toyed with a few blades of grass beside him where he sat. 'My memory's coming back in pieces... There are still plenty of gaps, but I have enough back that I think I've got a general picture of the last few years now.'  

Just as it had been the last time he was there, talking to a piece of stone felt all at once awkward and oddly comforting, and coming back again after a few months had passed felt even more so -but it seemed only right, after talking to her the last time, to follow up and let Meera know how things were going.  

Aram glanced up again, eyes crinkling for a moment as he let out a soft chuckle.  

'You don't by any chance know where I hid an engagement ring, do you?' His smile turned wistful. Contemplative, even. 'I don't know if I’m ready to ask Samar just yet, but I'd kind of like to find it,' he added softly. 'The Scorpion is dead and he's still threatening to pull us apart. Even if I don't feel ready to ask Samar, I need to find that ring for her.  At first I thought it'd be too painful, but I'm starting to think now that she should know what could have been... But I don't want to tell her without that ring.'

A breath caught in Aram's throat. It felt almost as if every time they tried to desperately pull the fractured pieces of their lives back together, someone turned up out of nowhere with a sledgehammer to shatter them all over again before the glue had even had a chance to set. But, Aram remembered enough. He remembered enough and he had learned enough to know with certainty now that he wanted those pieces to _stay_ stuck back together... And if Samar had to be put on the next plane out of the country for good, Aram wanted her to be able to take the ring with her. If not a proposal it was, at the very least, a promise that all was not lost and that he wanted them both to have the life they should have had before The Scorpion had waltzed in out of nowhere and destroyed everything they had built. It was a promise that no matter what happened, he wasn't going to give up.  

'I don't want her to be recalled to Tel Aviv, Meera.' Aram sighed, shaking his head in dismay. 'Not now, not when we've been working so hard to get back on track... But I don't know what else I can do.' He stared back at the stone, wishing that it could offer him some kind of guidance.

Silence fell over those few square feet. Aram found his brain zeroing in on every last interaction with Meera that he could remember. Everything between Anslo Garrick's invasion, and Meera's death was spotty... But Aram had enough returning flickers and he had read enough case files that for some reason, something about that time period was nagging at him. His brow knitted with a frown, and he gritted his teeth.

'How _did_ Garrick manage to breach the Post Office back then?' He muttered –to the air rather than anyone in particular. 'He had to get the information from somewhere; where we were, who our informant was, what our security procedures were...' It took a second, and then it clicked. Aram's eyes went wide as the memory suddenly flashed before his eyes; Garrick didn't stumble across the information on his own. It was _leaked._  

And that was precisely the direction in which his brain was frustratedly trying to point him.  

Just like that, Aram knew what he could do. His face lit up with the excitement of a new idea in the back of mind beginning to form from wisps into something more concrete, and he jumped back to his feet. He paused just long enough to run a grateful hand along the top of the stone and murmur softly to her, before scuttling across the grass back to the car.  
'Thanks, Meera.'

/*/*/*/*

By the time Aram returned home, he was buzzing. The idea had struck, and the longer it lurked in the back of his brain it had only grown stronger and clearer. He barged through the front door, barely glancing to make sure it fell closed behind him before rushing down the entry hall.  

'We could release the file,' he burst out, the second he rounded the corner into the living room. On the couch, having taken the last, rare, half hour of peace and quiet to simply sit and read a book, Samar jumped. She glanced up, eyes widening in sudden surprise as she watched Aram cross the room towards the kitchen counter, already digging into his trouser pocket for his phone.    
'We could _what?'_ Was all she could manage to splutter in response.    
'Hang on,' Aram muttered, raising one finger. His other hand was hurriedly unlocking his phone, and Samar allowed her book to fall closed beside her. She rose, curiously, from the couch and strode across the room to join him. A quick glance at the screen in the palm of his hand revealed a now outgoing call to Angus, with the sudden ringing noise erupting a second later to reveal that it was also on speaker.  

A moment later and Angus picked up, his usual, cheerful greeting instantly filling the air between them.

'We could release the file,' Aram burst out for the second time, straight to the point and as usual, ahead of himself in his enthusiasm.  

Angus' response was little more than a splutter not unlike Samar's had been. She stood there, beside Aram, both bemused and still impatiently waiting for him to explain his apparent brainwave to both of them.  

'The file,' Aram pushed on, 'the one with the details of every government-sanctioned hit that The Scorpion committed. It would turn the tables back on them.' Samar winced. Now she understood exactly what Aram was getting at.    
'Not to mention, it would make us targets and potentially cost us our jobs,' she pointed out, 'I think I've had enough of both of those threats for the time being.' Aram glanced back at her, biting his lip. He was desperate to do anything he could to get their superiors off her back and finally get back to life without the Scorpion's threats dangling over their heads.    
'We could do it anonymously,' he suggested, voice fraught with an eager desperation, 'we're skilled enough to hide our tracks.' A wry smile tugged at Samar's lips.    
'Who are you, and what have you done with Aram Mojtabai?' She mused.    
'I'm with Samar on this,' Angus' voice echoed from the phone, 'the international incident doesn't need to get any bigger. But...' He paused for a split second, his voice suddenly lowering and slowing in pace with an incoming idea of his own. 'What if we just put the word out there that it's a possibility? Between Aram and I on the dark web and you with your Mossad contacts, Samar, just the _threat_ of exposing the file filtering back to them might be enough to convince them to pipe down.'

Samar gave a slow nod, processing that idea. It was just crazy enough to work. As far as they knew, nobody other than The Scorpion knew they had the file or what was in it. The information that had trickled in from his former employers was that they were angry that he had been killed, and even more so because they didn't know why. Of course, she would still be the obvious suspect when it came to the threat of leaking the file, but as long as Aram and Angus hid their tracks, the lack of concrete evidence would be enough to at least ensure that none of them lost their jobs.  

Whether or not they would still face any other kind of retaliation was a completely different matter, but it was a gamble that Samar was far more willing to take.  

'And if they pipe down, it would ease the tensions, which would then reduce the pressure to send me back,' she followed Angus' train of thought easily, 'making it easier for Cooper to argue the case for me to stay.' Samar shifted her gaze to meet Aram's. The corners of her lips twitched with the tiniest ghost of a smile, and her eyes burned with the fire of a wild eagerness for retribution against all those who had dared try to tear her life apart. Aram's crinkled with an excited determination. They were in this together, and nothing was going to stop them now.

If The Scorpion's employers were going to remain so steadfast in taking Samar down, she was going to take as many of them down with her as possible.  

'Ok,' she murmured, 'let's do it.'

/*/*/*/*

It took Aram and Angus little time to put their threat out through their particular channels. That was the wonderful thing about the internet; sharing anything could be instantaneous, with little more necessary than the click of a button or a few simple keystrokes. For Samar, however, it was different. Her channels were more direct; intelligence operatives on the ground, working the very field through which they needed the threat to trickle, and without the need of specialist tech skills to interpret it –but though more direct, they were also slower. The information they wanted to spread had to travel by word of mouth from operative to operative, loosely enough for it to seem as if it was classified information that had been leaked or let slip for the agents of enemy forces to find, but not so easily that they suspected that it was a set up.  

Samar stood in the shadows, her back leaned casually against the wall of the abandoned warehouse turned Mossad operations base. She left the lights off, and for good reason; the less people who knew she was there, the better. For the moment it was just her, but she knew the patterns of her teammates and knew exactly when to stop by to catch anyone she wanted to catch.

She only had to wait a few minutes before a tall, familiar figure entered the space, flicking on the light closest to the entryway. Samar watched, and she waited. For a moment, he didn't even notice her standing there off to one side... And then he paused, going very still. He straightened his stance, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling with the sensation of being watched. He turned on the spot, eyes narrowed, searching for the source of that off feeling, until his gaze landed on her.  

His lips curled into a small smirk of amusement, and Samar offered a wry smile in return. Despite the fact that ever since going off the grid, her Mossad access had been revoked and with it, the ability to use her swipe card to enter the building they were now standing in, he didn't at all seem surprised to see her there. He knew her better than that. He knew that she wasn't about to lurk outside the building to catch him if she needed to. Instead, she find a way around the locked door to meet him inside, just to spite the system that was making her life difficult and well, also just because she could. So long as no one other than him showed up –and Samar doubted they would at that hour- nobody would ever know she was there.

Samar pushed herself off the wall and strode towards him easily, her injured leg still just a mere three days from being allowed to run again, but no longer in any pain with her purposeful steps. His smile seemed to only grow wider as she came closer.

'You've been busy,' Levi observed, as if by way of greeting. Samar gave a short nod, one hand brushing gently against his arm in return, but stopping short of a full embrace.  

Busy was certainly _one_ way of describing the events of the last few months.  

'I need a favour,' she began.  
'Anything.' Levi's dark eyes bore into her own. There was always an intensity about his gaze, but this time Samar wasn't about to let it pull her guard down. Her position with Mossad was still under review, and despite her utmost trust in him, she had to remain cautious and get out of the warehouse as quick as possible before anyone suspected she was there or suspected him of helping her.    
'You've heard about the pressure to send me back to Tel Aviv?' Samar asked.    
'Unfortunately,' he murmured back. Levi's gaze flashed with concern; 'I wish you hadn't tried to take The Scorpion down on your own-' he tilted his head, contemplating that. He knew how much her parents' deaths had affected her, and how significant it was that she had gone after their killer '-but at least he's gone now.'

Those dark eyes of his didn't break from hers for a second. Being the leader of their Mossad team, Levi had heard everything that had happened. He knew she was under review for it, and he knew the threats she was facing.  

'I have a whole file on him-' Samar held up her phone for him to see, swiping quickly through full page shot after full page shot of the highlights '-endless pages of reports and evidence of every hit he ever undertook.' Levi raised a single, wry eyebrow. 'I'm sure his former employers wouldn't want it to get out.'  
'And just how many copies of it do you now have hidden away in case they take that threat as a cue to come after you?' Levi asked.    
'A few,' she said, a devious smile tugging at her lips again, 'some in places they'll never find. Help me spread the word?' It took all of a nanosecond for Levi to agree, and he tipped his head to her.    
'With pleasure,' he replied, 'and Samar?' He added, a little louder this time as she turned on the spot, ready to vanish into the shadows once more. 'It's good to see you.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutouts to NobodysDarling and Anna for commenting on last week's chapter! :) And well done to anyone who guessed that it would be Levi appearing in this week's chapter!
> 
> Next up in Chapter 23, I'm hoping for a return of some fluff. We have just three chapters left of the story, folks! In the meantime, I don't have any guessing games for the next chapter, but I'd still love to see all your comments! For those of you who don't comment much; where are you all reading from? What's your favourite colour? Do you think pineapple belongs on a pizza? Say hi and tell me stuff! :) (I'm from Western Australia, my favourite colour is blue, and I am totally against pineapple on pizza :P )


	23. And There it Was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Wednesday, July 3, 2019

**_WEDNESDAY..._ **

Everything went quiet after that. If The Scorpion's former employers will still enraged by his death, it didn't seem to trickle through. Or even if it did, Cooper and those above him hadn't passed it on. Aram had seen the way his threat to leak the file had spread on the dark web, following the tracker he had embedded in the code to see it reach its intended destination, while the rumour that Samar and Levi had started to spread had well and truly gone full circle too. Within a matter of days, friend-of-a-friend operatives who she bumped into while out and about were pulling Samar aside, sharing the whispers they had heard of the mysterious file on the infamous killer that was just waiting to be released, without ever realising that she was its very source.  

Whether or not the quietness on the issue from Cooper's office was a good or bad thing remained to be seen, but with every day that passed without Samar being called in by her Mossad superiors for reassignment, the hope that she could stay glimmered ever stronger.  

The bait was there.

All they had to do now was wait.  

Samar turned her attention instead to rebuilding the strength in her injured leg. Her reinstatement to field work was still pending, but by no means at all was she banned from the building. The twice weekly training sessions in the Post Office gym were a lifeline, no matter how much they made her muscles ache.  

Aram couldn't help but smile from the sidelines as he watched her move. Half the agents in the building were down there, practising their hand to hand combat by sparring in pairs that rotated every five minutes. Half an hour had already passed and the sweat was starting to drip from brows, but not one of the ten or so agents dared to pause. Every last one of them bore looks of fierce determination in the battle of wills to gently topple one another to the floor, only breaking into small, good natured grins in recognition of each other's efforts as the timer beeped, prompting them all to move on, reset, and start all over again.  

Samar was the only one coming in off an injury, but still after half an hour she remained six for naught. Ressler had come the closest to knocking her down to the foam floor mats, but his wariness of her injury had made him hesitate for a split second –which was all that Samar had needed to sweep his feet from under him and then shoot him a tiny grin as she helped him up again.  

No matter how much it hurt, Samar held her own.  

Ressler had tipped his head to her, grinning back at the fact he should have known better than to doubt her, and onwards he had moved.  

Aram found himself slipping into a daydream; him and Samar at home, relaxed and comfortable with one another, smiling softly as they went back and forth with the lazy weekend routine of having no real routine at all. He was in his pajama bottoms and odd, fuzzy socks, but he was shirtless. She had taken his soft, worn, old shirt off him already, and had it draped over her faded tank top and polka dotted sleep shorts –her dark curls tumbling messy and beautiful over her shoulders until the ends seemed to dance over the top of the three little letters spelling out MIT. There was nothing new about that, but something about the visual did seem different. It was the living room itself, not furnished the way it was in the present reality but rather, limited to a skeleton version, with half-empty boxes still scattered around. They were still unpacking after moving in together, the boxes slow to empty themselves around their busy work schedule, and waiting for the free time of the weekend they had just woken up to. He was musing at the coffee table -one piece of their newly combined furniture that had originally come from hers- and wondering why on earth such a table needed a row of three small drawers underneath. She had shrugged, saying she had never used them but rather, simply liked the look of the overall table when she had first moved to DC and hadn't had many options to choose from in the hurry to furnish a new apartment from scratch... And he had simply laughed, eyes crinkling as he wondered aloud whether that was true, or whether she was just saying that to cover the fact that it was her perfect hiding place for secret treasures.  

Samar had only grinned in response.  

Still on the bench along the sidelines of the gym, Aram's eyes went wide. He shook his head. That image was far too clear to be anything his mind could have made up. He stared curiously back at Samar, still working through her training, his brow furrowing as the timer beeped again, signalling the last rotation. Even from across the room, he could see the way the smile on her face seemed to vanish in an instant as her final opponent –Agent Bronner- turned to mutter something to Ressler, before turning his smirk to her in turn. The look on Samar's face turned to one of thunder, fiercer again than that she had shown to any other opponent before him. The timer started with another beep, and Samar lunged forwards.  

Her still healing leg didn't stop her for a moment.  

One arm swept across, lightning fast, her forearm on a rapid collision course for the side of Bronner's neck. He ducked, leaning sideways to avoid impact, but that was exactly what Samar had planned. It forced him to move from standing straight and steady on his feet, allowing her arm to carry on, hand curling into the back of his neck as her other arm grabbed him by the shoulder. She pulled him towards her, just enough for her leg to extend behind and around his and sweep his feet out from under him before finally, pushing him backwards again. In all of two seconds, Bronner toppled over, slamming back against the foam floor mats with a powerful thud that echoed in the ears of everyone in the room.  

It was enough for them all to suddenly stop, freezing mid-fight to turn and stare in surprise at him sprawled across the mats.  

'Dude,' Bronner spat, shifting his gaze across his colleagues around him and finally settling on Ressler; 'are you going to let her do that?' He pushed himself up off the mats, shooting Samar a dirty look that didn't seem to rattle her in the slightest.    
'Do what?' Ressler deadpanned in response, offering little more than a nonchalant shrug. 'I didn't see anything.' He turned, effectively ending the dispute as soon as it had started as he began to walk away. One by one, the other agents in the training group all turned in kind, trickling away and leaving Bronner there, fuming. Samar stifled a smirk –if for no other reason than not needing to exacerbate the situation- but Liz didn't bother. She shot Samar a fleeting glance, eyes crinkling with a mischievous agreement for a moment, before turning and following the rest of the group.  

Bronner scowled, watching them all. He rolled his eyes, but ultimately gave up, letting out a growl under his breath and then a huff, before marching off in the opposite direction. At last the smirk tugged at Samar's lips. In theory, she hadn't done anything wrong; the whole idea was to spar with each partner until one of the pair hit the mats, and that was exactly what she had done.

...Guaranteed, it was faster and considerably more forceful than it was supposed to be, without even giving Bronner a chance before slamming him down, but it wasn't as if she had given him a black eye or broken his nose.  

And considering the fact that Ressler was supposed to be paying attention to his own sparring partner, saying that he hadn't seen anything wasn't technically lying either.  

Samar met Aram's eyes from across the room. He was wide-eyed, almost startled. She strolled across the mats towards him and Aram rose quickly to his feet, holding out her water bottle and towel.  

'What was that about?' He asked.    
'Agent Bronner?' Samar rolled her eyes in exasperation, taking a quick gulp of the water. 'He tried to make some snarky joke to Ressler about being beaten by a girl and how much he must hate having to be stuck with me in the field-' her eyes narrowed further still ‘-and then he thought it was funny to suggest that the only reason you're still with me is because you're either an idiot or you have a brain injury.'

Samar shifted her gaze, glowering again in the direction of the gym door through which Bronner had now long since disappeared. He had spent the entire training session needling each of his sparring partners in turn with snide remarks just to get a rise out of them, and each jibe had been more and more out of line than the last. Every other agent in the room had been sick of him, and by the time he had reached Samar, her blood was boiling.

...And so she had taken him down in a nanosecond, just to shut him up.  

Any aches and pains he felt in the next few hours after being slammed into the floor mats were an added bonus, as far as Samar was concerned.  

'Technically...' Aram shifted uneasily where he stood, offering a lopsided attempt at a reassuring smile. 'I _did_ have a brain injury, but that's not why I'm still with you.' Samar tilted her head, a tiny, affectionate smirk tugging at her lips. Horrifyingly, Bronner's comments were nothing new, and Samar couldn't be bothered letting it ruin her day. Slamming him into the mats had been more than enough to get the worst of it out of her system but it was Aram, in all his awkwardness, trying to make her feel better that did the trick. She slipped her arms over his shoulders, pulling him in close.    
'That's beside the point,' Samar said softly, dotting a quick kiss to his lips. 'The point is I kicked his ass because he's the idiot, not you.' She lingered there for a moment, her fingertips resting along the soft stubble of his jaw, before finally slipping her towel from his hand. 'I'll see you back upstairs in a bit.'

A soft, curious smile slowly etched its way across Aram's face as he watched her turn and wander away. Samar might have been able to push past the obnoxious comments, but they had his instinct to protect her rumbling somewhere deep inside, just as it had when she was in the hospital... And with every time that happened, he grew more and more determined to hold onto what they had rebuilt.  

The game of waiting and seeing if their plan would work was agony.

And in the meantime, he _still_ had to find the ring.

All he could do was wonder if it was really that simple... If the ring really was in that drawer that had been right in front of him the whole time.  

/*/*/*/*

As with every other returning memory, it grew clearer and clearer with every minute that Aram had it back... But there was still one tiny hole. He could remember joking about the coffee table drawers, he could remember puzzling and planning, trying to figure out the best way to pop the question. He could even remember going to the jewellery store with his father and Angus, poring over the glass displays in the attempt to figure out which ring Samar would love the most.  

But the one thing he couldn't remember... Was exactly what he had decided upon in the end.  

Aram was desperate to figure it out, but with Samar lingering in the building without actually being cleared to work, she hovered close to him by default, her roller chair pulled from her desk over to his for the sake of having some company while she was stuck sitting around after her training, twiddling her thumbs. It meant that anything that popped up on Aram's computer screen, or even his phone, Samar saw the second that he did. There was no way he could he could follow up on any of the ideas he had once had to try and figure out which one he had settled on in the end, without her realising what he was up to.  

...Or at least, not until she relented to the need for coffee and headed for the break room, anyway. It would only take her five minutes, but that was all Aram needed to dart away from his desk and make a break for the copy room, cell phone at the ready to call his parents and anyone else that he could reach before Samar came looking for him.  

/*/*/*/*

By the time the work day was over, it took everything Aram had not to start twitching. Normally he wouldn't have had any issue at all with her all over his personal space all day but for once, he needed her away from him and out of the room again, even if just for another five minutes.  

He'd had _most_ of his proposal plan figured out before Samar came wandering back, a steaming, fresh cup of coffee in each hand, and now that they were home again Aram was onto the next part of the mystery that her presence kept blocking him from unravelling.  

He _needed_ to be able to look in that drawer without her noticing, and the suspense was _killing_ him... But even while they were going about the usual routine of making dinner and doing the washing up afterwards, Aram couldn't escape her or duck away. The kitchen had a clear line of sight over the counter to the living room, and that thwarted every attempt.  

That routine of the first couple of hours after returning home –normally something that seemed to pass in a whirlwind- felt like an _eternity._

Aram resisted the urge to practically launch himself at the coffee table as soon as the dishes were done, and Samar headed for the bathroom. Instead he waited just in case she forgot something and came back, his ears prickling with alertness until he heard the squeak of the shower door hinges and the water beginning to flow free from the showerhead. He waited a moment longer again –better safe than sorry- and then finally, he scuttled across the gap from the couch to the centre of the living room, pulling open the drawer on the right.

It was empty.

As was the one in the middle.

Aram gritted his teeth, the breath catching in his throat as his hand hovered over the leftmost drawer. It was the only place in the entire apartment that he hadn't looked. It was his last hope. If the ring wasn't there, Aram was at a loss for where else to look. Squeezing his eyes hard shut for a moment, Aram tugged the drawer open. He opened his eyes, his heart feeling as if it was plummeting into his stomach with the first peek inside. At first glance, it looked empty, but as he pulled the drawer inch by inch further open, a flash of dark blue right in the back corner caught his already wincing eyes.

The kind of dark blue that seemed a shade reserved precisely for velvet lined boxes that housed engagement rings.

And there it was.  


	24. When Push Comes to Shove

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Thursday-Friday, July 11-12, 2019

**_THURSDAY..._ **

The days seemed to blur into one another. Hopeful waiting through the silence of no progress morphed slowly into impatient waiting, and then again into disheartened waiting. Day after day of being stuck, killing time and twiddling her thumbs either at Aram's desk or at home left Samar hopelessly frustrated.  

There was nothing more they could do. They had laid their trap with the hope of word trickling down through all the various channels involved, but they had hoped that it would have taken effect sooner than this.  

Everything had gone quiet, and for far too long. Even word of the higher ups being unhappy would have been better than nothing... At least then they would have  _ some _ indication of what was going on in those private meetings in distant offices. 

The silence instead, rather, was deafening.  

'Samar.' Cooper's deep voice jolted Samar from staring in blank exasperation at whatever tech wizardry was fluttering across Aram's screen. She turned in her swivel chair, eyeing the Assistant Director strolling down the stairs towards them from his office. The corners of his lips quirked up slightly –not quite a smile or even a smirk, but something nonetheless that seemed positive... Or confident at the very least. He came to a slow stop at the corner of Aram's desk, calmly and matter of factly sliding a black leather wallet across the surface towards her. 'I believe this is yours.' 

Samar's eyes flashed with surprise, and then with skepticism. She reached across the desk, one finger flipping open the cover of the wallet for a second to confirm what was already easy to guess, before Cooper's hand moved quickly to fold it closed again and then rest there, keeping it just out of reach. 

Her Bureau ID. 

_...Minus _ her agency-issued weapon.  

'They agreed to reinstate me?' Samar asked, unconvinced. Beside her, Aram raised a single, quizzical eyebrow.    
'Apparently the complaints about The Scorpion's death seem to have suddenly and mysteriously subsided,' Cooper mused. He held her gaze with an intensity that seemed to bore into her skull, his dark eyes challenging hers with a curious combination of mild irritation and knowing amusement all at once. 'With the incident easing off, I managed to convince the higher ups that having a Mossad agent on our team isn't such a bad thing. You wouldn't happen to know anything about the sudden silence, would you?' 

Samar kept her expression deliberately neutral, despite Aram shifting uncomfortably in his seat next to her, dropping his gaze to stare –almost too hard- at his computer instead. She tilted her head in thought for a second; honesty, for all its purported greatness, wasn't about to win her any favours this time around –and Cooper, for all his knowing tones and smiles, still had little more than mere suspicions that they were up to anything at all. Until he had any kind of proof –which, he likely never would- he would be better off with being able to maintain plausible deniability if  _ his _ bosses asked the same question.  

'Not at all, sir,' Samar said simply.    
'In that case,' Cooper replied, lifting his fingers from her ID at last, 'assuming you pass the usual psych eval, you're good to go. And Aram-' Aram's head snapped immediately upwards in surprise '-during that review, they pointed out that you're due for another one too.' Cooper turned, offering them one last wry smile before wandering back towards his office. 'I suggest that the two of you make a day of it.' 

The few seconds it took for him to walk out of earshot were an eternity where Aram felt like he was about to burst. 

'Does that mean our threat to leak the file actually worked?' The question, quiet as a whisper despite the fervour with which it burst from him, cracked in his throat. Samar glanced cautiously back over her shoulder, watching Cooper disappear behind his office door.   
'Yes and no,' she murmured, biting her lip as she shifted her focus back to Aram. 'Not if they suspect we had anything to do with it.' She paused for a second, eyes narrowing with a flash of concern. 'Cooper knows more than he's telling.'   
'You think the psych evals are a fishing expedition.' That was an observation more so than a question, with Aram's own cautious concern beginning to creep into his voice.    
'Maybe.' Samar offered a small shrug. 'We won't know until we go. Problem is-' she let out a frustrated sigh '-that means we actually have to go.' 

/*/*/*/* 

**_FRIDAY..._ **

'Agent Navabi,' the doctor began, as soon as they sat down. 'May I call you Samar?' Samar blinked, stifling the urge to roll her eyes. She loathed sitting through psych evals on the best of days, but Doctor Shrader was already on her nerves barely ten seconds in. It was that voice –that high, piercing voice full of fake, sugary-sweetness- and the smug expression as if she thought she had the upper hand, that had a scowl fighting to be free on Samar's face from the moment she had walked into the office. 

'Do I get a choice?' She flatly replied.    
'You don't like psychological evaluations, do you?'   
'Not particularly. I just want to get on with my job.'   
'The job that you deliberately left behind to chase and kill The Scorpion?' Samar found two of her fingers curling and the nails digging into her palm. Just as she suspected, there was no getting off easy. Shrader had read the previous evaluations in her file and knew how much she hated people trying to toy with her mind, so her plan of attack was to needle her straight from the get go in the hope of backing her into a corner or forcing her to make some kind of admission in the form of an outburst.  

Samar had absolutely zero intention of giving her that admission, but as much as she wanted to argue back with fire of her own, she also knew that wasn't going to help the situation at all. Just like any good undercover operation, she had to keep her cool no matter how much the target –or in this case, Doctor Shrader- had her wanting to throttle something.  

...And hopefully, that would allow her to get out of there before the sugary sweet smile sitting across from her, tried to worm her way too far into her head.  

'He murdered my parents,' Samar coolly explained, 'then he broke into my home, abducted and tortured Aram, and had the full intent to kill me too.'   
'You both got away from him.' The doctor was calm but quick in her response; 'but then you went straight after him again.'   
'If I didn't, he would have come after me instead,' Samar shot back. She paused, taking a breath to calm her tone for a second; 'and he would have taken down everyone else around me that he thought was necessary to cause me pain first. That includes my partners on the taskforce.'   
'So you left them to... What? Keep them safe?'   
'Yes.' 

Silence fell between them for a moment. Shrader eyeballed her, but Samar stared right back, unwilling to give in. It wasn't until the doctor dropped her gaze to her notes, scribbling something down, that Samar released the breath that she hadn't even realised she was holding.  

'And now that he's gone, do you think you're ready to go back into the field?' The doctor finally voiced her next question.    
'Yes.' It took everything Samar had to muzzle the irritation desperate to creep into her tone.    
'What about the file?'   
'The file?' Samar added a curious sweetness of her own to the simple response, tilting her head just ever so slightly. Shrader paused for a moment, lip quirking up with the smug satisfaction of believing that she had her subject cornered already.  

'When Agent Mojtabai was first abducted, you reported that The Scorpion took him after breaking into your home in search of a file on his operations,' she observed, gesturing oh so casually with her pen to the reports in her hand. 'But no such file was checked into evidence.'   
'I still have it,' Samar replied. She kept her words simple, and her tone matter of fact, if for no other reason than to throw off the smugness that expected her to be tumbling over her words with the fear of having been caught.    
'So-' Shrader stretched out the word, allowing it to dangle, threateningly, over Samar's head '-you're holding onto a detailed file on the man who destroyed your family,' she mused, 'even though he's now gone and no longer poses any risk to you or those around you.' The smug smile seemed to widen little bit by little bit with every word. 'But you don't believe that you're too hung up on what he did to you, not to be a liability in the field?'   
'What else would you have me do with it?' Samar asked, blinking all in quizzical innocence. 'Surely, burning it seems unnecessary. It's not hurting anyone by just sitting in a drawer all by itself.' 

That smug smile on Shrader's face vanished in an instant, and Samar allowed herself the tiniest of victorious smirks.  

'Agent Navabi,' she began again, scorn broiling in her eyes; 'the Bureau does not look lightly on incidences where agents prioritise their personal agendas, especially those with access to highly classified information. They need to be satisfied that your reinstatement will not place the Bureau, its operations, or its other agents at risk.'  

Samar simply broke into a wry smile as she replied;    
'You said it yourself; The Scorpion's dead. If you think that destroying him is the only thing that informs my actions, then what further personal agenda could I possibly have that would deter me from Bureau operations now?' 

/*/*/*/* 

Samar had been in the doctor's office for almost an hour. By the time she re-emerged, curious smile etched across her face despite the doctor's insistence on discussing  _ feelings _ for the second half of their conversation –which, Samar suspected, was little more than retaliation for her quip about the file- Aram had just about paced a hole in the floor in the waiting room outside.  

'Agent Mojtabai,' Shrader began, her voice just as sickening as Aram remembered; 'and so we meet again.' Aram gritted his teeth, eyeing the way she sat there watching him walk in next; unlike Samar, he  _ had _ met Shrader before -when she had given him a grilling before allowing him to return to work after his original accident... And ever since being kidnapped by The Scorpion, he had dreaded having to go through it again. Shrader gestured towards the couch across from her –the one that, as Aram panned his gaze across to it- Samar had just vacated moments earlier. He could see the way the grey throw cushions had been shifted from their perfectly decorative arrangement to being lined up out of the way and against one arm rest as she always did at home. It was easy to tell exactly where Samar had sat, and Aram lowered himself to sit in precisely the same spot.  

Shrader's eyes flickered curiously at his choice, but if she was at all unnerved by it, she didn't let it show.  

'How much of your memory would you say you have back now? She asked –straight to the point, just as Aram remembered.    
'Maybe seventy percent? He ventured a guess. At the very least, that was about as much of his journal as he had been able to fill in so far. Shrader gave a short nod, scribbling away at her notes long enough that Aram began to shift uncomfortably in his seat.    
'And of the year or so before the accident where your relationship with Agent Navabi became romantic?   
'About the same.' 

The doctor tilted her head, watching him again and breaking into a small smile.  

'So you have feelings for her,' she observed.    
'Yes,' he murmured back, furrowing his brow. Pen scratched at notebook again for another moment, before Shrader turned those icy eyes back to his.    
'Would you say you're committed to her?' She asked curiously. Aram hesitated for a moment, contemplating that... And out of nowhere, an odd sense of calm and surprise washed over him all at once. The answer came to him easily –far more so than he would have expected- despite having not thought about it with such specificity before, and that sudden certainty was just as sudden a comfort.    
'Yes.'   
'Committed enough to cover for her if she used Bureau resources for a personal agenda?' 

Aram narrowed his eyes. He hadn't had the chance to talk to Samar between her leaving the office and him going in, but Shrader's questions were clear enough to tell him exactly what Samar hadn't been able to; this discussion had little to do with assessing him as it should have been, and  _ everything _ to do with assessing her and determining to precisely what extent they had tried to affect her reinstatement. It was indeed the fishing expedition they had anticipated. 

But... It also served another, unexpected purpose. 

Prompting his brain to think about that word 'commitment.' 

There had been a photo he had found among the hundreds saved on his phone; a selfie from the pre-accident days of himself, Samar, Angus and Riley together. He had been on the edge –the one taking the photo- with Samar draped comfortably around him. Angus stood on her other side, with Riley held up in his arms to see the camera until the little boy seemed to be right in the middle of all of them. Samar had reached out to tousle Riley's hair to prompt him to smile –only for him to squirm in his father's arms, his messy mop of sandy hair flying wildly as he turned to pull a face. Samar had pulled one right back at him, leaving Aram and Angus to both start laughing just as the photo had clicked, capturing their happy blur forever.  

Aram hadn't remembered it at first but even without context of what they were all smiling and laughing at, it had made him smile... Then when he _ had _ finally remembered that day, his heart only seemed to swell with affection even more so.  

With new memories coming back every day, and now that he had found the ring, Aram was starting to wonder... Maybe, just maybe, simply  _ telling _ Samar about the ring wasn't quite enough.  

'I think that's more a case by case basis than a broad generalisation.' Aram's words were slow and carefully chosen in his reply. The doctor's gaze bore into his skull, analysing every last one of them with an uncomfortable intensity.    
'But you wouldn't automatically stand by the Bureau?' There was something dangerous, almost threatening, about Shrader's question, but not in the way that struck fear deep inside. Rather, it was the kind of dangerous that triggered something other than fear –a fierce determination, not quite anger, that riled Aram on the basis of sheer principle.  

'We do this job because we believe in justice-' Aram's voice wavered slightly as he spoke, but he pushed through it anyway '-in doing the right thing to make the world a better place.' He held that gaze that had made him so uncomfortable before, his jaw clenched and his own piercing stare pushing her right back. 'If the Bureau was the one in the wrong, would it be right simply to follow orders?' 


	25. The Last Hurrah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story timeline date; Thursday-Friday, July 18-19, 2019
> 
> Opening inspired by [this post.](http://whimsyandsomething.tumblr.com/post/172855623581/saram-board-game-night#notes) For ages I've been trying to find a good spot to work this scene in -better late than never, I guess! :D

**_THURSDAY..._ **

Aram didn't believe it. Most of what Samar had told him over the last few months about the five years that he had lost and was still clawing back piece by piece, Aram believed, but not that. Their relationship, the cases they had worked together, and even that he had at one point requested  _ field training, _ Aram could believe... But  _ that?  _

Samar had said that not only had she beaten him at Monopoly once but that ever since, she had done it regularly. 

Aram didn't believe it. Nobody could beat him at Monopoly. He had strategies he was convinced were flawless. 

And so she had pulled out the old Monopoly box that had been one of his contributions to the household when they moved in together, Samar calmly and confidently saying that she would show him that she could beat him. Again. 

And then she did. 

Now, Aram stared in stunned horror at the board littered with so many of her hotels that  she had run out of those little, red, plastic tokens, and had needed to add other bits and pieces from around the living room to make up the rest. 

If nothing else at all had turned his world upside down in the last six months since his accident, _ that _ had him utterly boggled. How she had managed it, Aram still didn't understand, but he did know one thing; 

The war was on. 

Though, in the meantime, he was  _ crushed.  _

It was supposed to be light-hearted; a fun but relatively quiet night after everything they had been through recently. It was their last night before they were set to hear the final decision that could change everything –Doctor Shrader's report on their evaluations, and whether the higher ups were definitely going to reinstate Samar or have Mossad re-assign her elsewhere effective immediately. It was their last hurrah –of sorts- and Samar had, knowing how much he liked it, suggested Scrabble... But Aram, remembering how often he had beaten her in Scrabble and not how often she had beaten him at Monopoly –something, he now supposed was his brain trying to _ un _ -scar him for life- had opted for the latter, just for something different.  

Suffice to say, he now regretted it.  

'Go on, rub it in,' Aram sighed. He eyed her, still sitting across the table from him and now slowly sweeping together her eye-wateringly large piles of the colourful, paper cash, ready to put it away. Samar was trying to be subtle for his sake, but Aram could tell from the ever so faint glint of concentration in her eyes; as she was sorting it all out to put it back in the box in the right order, she was counting her winnings. Samar glanced up as the last note slipped into the box, shooting him a look of wistful amusement.  

'For once...' She murmured softly. 'Shattering your bubble the second time around isn't as much fun.' Aram held her gaze –that tiny, sympathetic smile of hers all it took to ease the weight of sheer humiliation from his shoulders. She hadn't gone easy on him –Samar was far too competitive for that, and that much Aram  _ did _ remember- but as much as she enjoyed winning, Samar wasn't so enthused about how devastated he had been the first time she had beaten him, and she certainly wasn't enthused about it this time either.  

Aram's lip twitched as he bowed his head, not quite a full smile, but his eyes crinkled with affection all the same. 

'Before I stubbornly demand a rematch,' he began, 'did I do that last time?' Aram slipped his own game pieces back into the box and Samar closed the lid, breaking into a chuckle.   
'Yep.'   
'And did you beat me again?'   
'Mmhmmm.'   
'And I've seriously never managed to win against you since?'  
'Nope.' She flashed him a grin, giving the box a quick nudge until it settled in the middle of the now clear dining table, and then rounded it to meet him on the other side. 'But usually, every couple of months you get the bug to play again and you get out the box, swearing you'll beat me this time... And each time you don't, and you pout for ten minutes-' Samar gave a good-natured eyeroll '-and then you get over it, laugh proudly, and swear you'll beat me next time.' 

Aram broke into a grin of his own.  

'I will,' he quipped, 'win next time, that is.' 

Samar's smile faltered, the look on her face turning contemplative and apprehensive. For all the fun of their board game battles, the reality never strayed too far from her mind.

'Assuming we get a next time,' she replied. She was so close to him now; though standing, her knees were barely inches from his where he still sat, leaning back in the dining chair. Aram reached out, fingertips softly grazing the waist of his old shirt hanging loosely from her frame. Almost instinctively in response, Samar lowered herself until she settled on his knees, her hands sliding over his shoulders and around the back of his neck as she moved, making herself perfectly comfortable there. Aram's arms wound around her waist, and he nuzzled into that gentle curve of her neck.  

No longer did he have those qualms about touching her, or holding her close. No longer did it feel like he had to force himself to be more affectionate than he felt simply to steady their relationship while they tried to piece it back together. They were gestures that came to him so easily now, and the sheer tenderness that seemed to radiate from him as she sank into his arms was genuine. 

But then Samar wondered...  _ Was it now too late? _

Neither of them wanted her to have to leave. Not now, not after they had rebuilt so much.  

'After dinner tomorrow night, if we have to,' Aram whispered. His breath, softly warm and gentle against her skin, filled Samar with a miserable longing. Dinner was set to be their real last hurrah if the results of their evaluations didn't go as hoped, or the celebration if they did. Aram had insisted on it, and Samar  _ was  _ looking forward to it... But only as much as she was nervous about what it might mean. 

She lifted her head, holding his gaze –now just as hopeful and earnest as hers. Aram's fingertips toyed with the edge of that shirt she had claimed from him, flitting ever so slightly underneath, leaving a trail of goose bumps that tickled her skin. Samar let out a sigh of breathy contentment running one hand along the soft stubble of his jaw in kind. Her lips sought his, pressing a slow kiss there as she found them.  

'Tomorrow, then,' she murmured back, 'but I'm still going to win.' 

/*/*/*/* 

**_FRIDAY..._ **

The seconds felt like minutes, and the minutes like hours. All they had to do was arrive at the Post Office, wait for Cooper to call them in when he was ready –something that wasn't likely to take long given that he would have received Shrader's report the night before or much earlier that morning- and then hear the verdict. It was supposed to be a wait even shorter than his words needed to be and yet, with so much at stake, it felt infinitely longer. 

The anxiety swirled in the backs of both their minds, trying and failing to ignore the threat of being torn apart that was just dangling over their heads. 

Finally being called into Cooper's office just minutes after the elevator doors rumbled closed behind them, did little to help. Every step further up the stairs and past his door, felt heavy.  

Samar and Aram sat side by side in the chairs on the opposite side of Cooper's desk. Not that their boss could see it past the edge of his desk, but Aram's discreetly hand reached over, clinging to hers where her fingers curled with an uneasy tension around the edge of her seat until they paled. 

It was reassurance just as much for him as it was for her.  

Cooper lifted a slim file from his desk, opening up the cover and staring down through his glasses at the first page.  

'Aram,' he slowly began to read and beside her, Samar noted Aram's shoulders tense with apprehension. 'Your evaluation results are clear.' Cooper's gaze flickered to Aram for a moment, and he broke into a small smile. 'No red flags, you're good to go.' Aram let out the breath he hadn't even realised he was holding, but his hand didn't let go of Samar's for a second.  

They weren't out of the woods yet.  

'Samar,' Cooper began again. His eyes lowered back to the file in front of him as he turned the page to the second report. Every second, every beat of her heart seemed to echo in her ears like a crack of thunder, almost deafening. Her stomach churned. This was it. This was the deciding moment. 'Aside from what Doctor Shrader considers an astounding disregard for her authority-' Cooper glanced up, eyes crinkling with a knowing amusement that caught a breath in Samar's throat '-your results are otherwise ok. She recommends that as I'm your boss, your reinstatement should be my decision, based on the respect I feel you have for myself and your colleagues.' 

Cooper paused, his earnest gaze boring intently into her as it always did. Samar took a deep breath, watching the way he calmly,  _ slowly  _ closed the file and set it down in front of him again until it sat just so.  

'I think the last few years speak for themselves,' he said softly. 'The members of this taskforce don't always agree, but you always have each other's backs and seem to come out stronger on the other side no matter what some of our cases have thrown at you. You-' Cooper paused for another beat, making it clear that this time he was meaning her in particular '-belong on this team, and I think you should stay.'  

Samar's eyes widened, and her heart skipped a beat. Somewhere, deep down inside, part of her had been expecting the worst. Somehow it seemed silly to doubt that she would ever be forced to leave and yet... The relief that now washed over her like a wave crashing over rocks was overwhelming. 

'Now that The Scorpion is gone, I don't imagine there will be any situation in the near future that would call your loyalties into question again,' Cooper added. He slid another page across the desk towards her –this time not from the file, but from the out tray beside it. Samar's eyes flickered in an instant to read the words moving steadily towards her; her order of reinstatement, already dated and signed, ready to be filed. 'Do you?' 

The last question, its limited words making no dent in the level of seriousness and warning they carried, jolted Samar's attention from that single piece of paper.  

'No, sir,' she quickly replied. Cooper gave a short nod –all she needed to know that at last, that was the end of the matter. Samar allowed herself to glance quickly sideways, noting the look of overwhelming relief on Aram's face that matched her own. Still his hand squeezed hers, so much so that –Samar suddenly realised- he was starting to cut off circulation. 

...But she didn't care. That tingling numbness starting to spread through her fingers was the last thing on either of their minds now that they had the result they needed.  

Samar's stomach flipped a somersault but she steadied herself, keeping a level of calm and composure that would fool anyone from knowing that inside, the rollercoaster ride of emotion had her about to burst.  

They were home free.  

/*/*/*/* 

It almost didn’t feel real. It was almost anti-climactic, after all the anxious waiting, for everything to suddenly be right with the world again, just like that.  

But that did little to stop the way their stomachs seemed to swoop with joy, or wipe the smiles from either of their faces. 

It had taken a little while for the reality to sink in but now that it had, there was no stopping Samar and Aram from strolling eagerly towards their favourite low-key restaurant with late opening hours that had become their treasured sanctuary for fulfilling, home-cooked meals on the way home from long nights at the Post Office, ready to celebrate. Samar slipped her hand in Aram's as they moved down the street, soaking in the atmosphere around them, of happy, relaxed people a-plenty, all enjoying their Friday night out with those closest to them. 

It was hard to believe just how close she had come to losing such a simple joy.  

The smile refused to leave Aram's face either, though a certain element of nervousness still remained lingering in the back of his mind.  

They moved through the doors of the restaurant. The owner, having known them well as regulars for years by now, gave a nod, shooting them a warm smile from behind the counter. There was a knowing twinkle in his eye that Samar missed at first, but that only took the slightest edge off Aram's anxiety.  

They took a few steps further inside, following the lead of the owner pointing them in the direction of their favourite booth the one with the perfect combination of window views and corner privacy.  

And then Samar froze. 

As soon as the table came into view, surprise ran at lightning speed through her veins.  

There was a reserved sign on the table. Two glasses sat out ready, either side of a bottle of her favourite champagne and Aram's non-alcoholic alternative. Tiny, green and purple candles lay scattered, their flickering flames surrounding and leaving a soft glow over the vase of fresh orchids in the centre of the table.  

Samar recognised that scene. She hadn't seen it before, but she had certainly heard enough about it to know exactly what it was.  

Aram broke into a grin. 

'I, uh, wanted to do something nice,' he quickly tried to explain, 'whether we were celebrating a win or enjoying one last night, I thought it should be something special.' Out of the corner of her eye, Samar noted Aram and the owner swapping small smiles before the latter slipped away, back into the crowd of staff and other diners. Samar took a breath. If Aram had organised this exact set up, then he had found the ring and was trying to pull off what he hadn't had a chance to do before his accident. She had no idea when he had found it or even found the time to plan it all over again, but he had no idea that she had found it first and knew exactly what his plan had been.  

Samar let a smile tug at her lips and she gave a quick nod of understanding as they both sat down. For Aram's sake, she had to pretend that she thought his table set up was for no other reason than his simple explanation.  

For all the combined nervousness and excitement lighting Aram's face, he still couldn't quite meet her eye. He shifted awkwardly in his seat, not sure what to say as waiters suddenly landed their favourite dishes in front of them without a single order having even been placed.  

Samar stifled a grin. Everything was perfect. 

Aram just didn't know it. 

/*/*/*/* 

The rest of the meal passed in much the same fashion. Aram remained jittery, but he managed to hold on throughout the meal without cracking. It took everything Samar had not to let slip that she knew what he was doing, and instead watch him shuffle and struggle through an entire meal's worth of small talk, but she knew it was necessary. 

She waited through the meal, and then as they strolled back down the street, through the park at the end of it, and the display of lights that twinkled in the trees, calmly and patiently for the moment she knew was coming.  

There was a bench just off to one side, faced so that it overlooked the city through a gap between two twinkling trees. Lit by the moonlight of a cloudless night, the view was a stunning ocean of city lights surrounding the Capitol  _ just _ visible in the distance. Aram sat down, taking a slow, deep breath as he gestured for Samar to sit beside him. His gaze panned across the view before them, quietly steadying himself for a moment. The smile had faded from his face now, replaced with a look of the utmost seriousness.  

'I don't remember everything, and at this point I don't know if I ever will...' Aram began. His voice was barely audible, even wavering slightly, but he forced himself to keep going. The gaps he still had left in his memory were gaps that he knew he now wasn't likely to fill, but he had come to accept that. Aram turned slightly where he sat, a burning intensity in his earnest gaze as he met Samar's eyes. 'But I remember enough. I remember us, I remember you, and I love you Samar. I found this-' he dug one hand deep into his pocket, digging out that blue, velvet lined box that felt as if it had been burning a hole there. Aram held it out for her to see; he watched her, painfully hyper-aware of every fraction of her reaction. 

There was no surprise in her eyes. They widened slightly, but there was something about the way her lip twitched with a knowing smile and for all her attempts to hide it, Samar couldn't stop that flicker of recognition that crossed her face as soon as the box appeared. 

She had been too calm during their dinner, not bothering to question his fidgeting through their meal as she usually would have.  

A sinking feeling settled in Aram's gut. He knew what that meant; she knew. Samar had known all along but she hadn't said anything about the ring just as he hadn't said anything to her... Neither of them wanting to inflict the heartache on each other of knowing what should have been. Aram bowed his head, the nervousness now fading easily with the knowledge that she had been patiently waiting for this the whole time. A sheepish smile began to slowly etch its way across his face.  

'I think you did too, and I'm so sorry I was never able to give it to you when I wanted to,' he said softly, and Samar's eyes crinkled with amused affection. 'But I think it's time you finally had it.' Aram slipped from the bench, crouching down before her on one knee. He wrapped his hands around hers, clasping the smooth edges of the box between them. 'Everyone keeps telling me I haven't stopped talking about you since the first day I met you-' he let out a chuckle at himself '-and I want to keep telling everyone who'll listen about how amazing you are. I might not remember every last day of our past, but I want to spend every day of the rest of our lives making new memories with you, so-' Aram cracked open the box, and Samar dropped her gaze in an instant to the sparkle of those stones –two light green ones sitting either side of the larger, central stone, that all seemed to glimmer in the lights of the trees around them. It was just as beautiful, just as simple and elegant as she remembered from finding it six months earlier, and a breath caught in her throat all over again. 'Samar Navabi... Will you marry me?' 

He stared up at her, cautious optimism tugging at his smile.  

Samar leaned forward, her forehead resting gently against his as she ran her fingers along the soft stubble of his jaw just as she had the night before. Her lips sought his again, landing a kiss there... First soft, then growing deeper. The joy whooped in her stomach. 

_ Finally... _

A loud crack burst above their heads, making Samar jump. She broke away from the kiss, startled, staring in surprise up at the bright flashes of colour erupting over them in sparkling fits and bursts.  

Fireworks. 

Samar gazed up at them, watching in disbelief. That was one element that had never come up when she had tried to figure out what his proposal plan had been. Aram shuffled back up onto the seat next to her, wrapping one arm around her, and unable to stop himself from chuckling at the look of mock-exasperation on her face.  

'Yes,' Samar laughed. She leaned her head against his shoulder, still watching the display in the sky above them. 'On one condition.' Aram's head whipped around, his heart rate suddenly quickening with dread... But a wry smile began to spread slowly across Samar's face. 'Tell me, who did you bribe to set off fireworks, Disney-style, right at the moment that I kissed you?' She asked drolly.  

Aram waggled his brow. He took her hand in his, Samar making no protest whatsoever to him slipping the ring onto her finger.  

In reality, Angus and a few more of their old NSA buddies were hidden in the trees, armed with the fireworks ready to be set off at that very cue... But Aram wasn't about to tell her that.  

He tucked that loose strand of hair behind her ear, kissing her again as he softly replied; 

'Can I say I don't remember?' 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it, folks! Another fic complete :)
> 
> Thanks as always for reading, kudosing and commenting, and I hope you enjoyed it. <3


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